Comment Re:The people lose again (Score 1) 323
In Sweden schooling is not only free but you also get around $800 each month while you study.
Except it's not free. It's subsidized, so you're paying for it by paying taxes. As far as "giving everyone a chance", I suppose that might mean different things to different people. Sure, no tuition means that poor people can go to college. Except they don't. By a large margin, college students have parents who also went to college, and so on. I'm not sure why this is, maybe working class parents instill a different set of values in their children, one that might not prioritize getting a degree.
While tuition-less college might mean that it's easier go from poor to middle class, the taxation levels also mean that it's more difficult going from middle class to rich. It's also frequently claimed (at least by Norberg, et al) that the US has a higher social mobility than Sweden, meaning that while it's certainly possible to go from working class to rich, it happens less frequently than it does in the US.
We want the best not the richest
Do you really believe that the best are studying at Uppsala or Lund, and not at Harvard and Oxford? What I mean to say is, the best can usually get a scholarship. If your objective is to maximize human capital, my guess the US is doing a better job of it.