I have no objection to scholarships, particularly private ones, or those issued by the universities themselves. Most of these involve earning it in some way, usually by exceptional academic performance. Others are bestowed for a wide variety of reasons. If someone wants to issue private scholarships for Exceptional Red-Headed People, I have no problem with it.

I also have no objection to special schooling deals for veterans at government expense.

Nor am I universally opposed to college aid, even at some taxpayer expense, for deserving people who simply can't afford college otherwise.

When we are talking about a $25 billion taxpayer-funded deal to supply universal free education in selected fields, we have another issue.

It seems on further examination that I may have been whacking at a straw man: In the article McFly refers to, the proposal seems to require teaching for four years as a partial repayment for the scholarships, which seems to put the proposal into the "earning" category, and I find a bit more acceptable. There are also tax credit ideas and a lot more items in the legislation that need further looking at.

I have no idea how graduating students are going to manage to shoehorn themselves into the highly-exclusive teaching field.