I agree that universities are no longer the gatekeeper to knowledge, however, I disagree that one can access middle class without them. It is a well-known argument that what a person pays for is a piece of paper, and that most of the middle class jobs screen for that piece of paper. That has been the case for as long as I have known and COVID19 won't change that system.

When I was an undergraduate a million years ago at a premier US engineering university, I was told that undergraduate education was financed by graduate research and that undergraduate education cost more than tuition brought in. My intuition told me that the statement was a load of bull, because why charge tuition or why not raise tuition. Since that time tuition has almost doubled and so circumstances may have changed, but I still think that this is an opportunity to test that statement. I doubted it then and I doubt it now.