Alternatively, education level is just used as a proxy for other forms of discrimination. If X is free they will just require X + 1, so free public education will simply reduce the number of productive years as people spend ever more time being educated.
That's really only true if the multiplier is less than 1/30 per year of school, eg 3.3%. I have no data on this but I'm betting a year of college is higher.
In some cases that is already not true. For example Medicine and law.
Your academic training ends late in life. And therefore you have to charge higher and higher to make up for your investments. And of course, for the student loans too.
A high school graduate capable of getting a medical degree != a normal high school graduate. Further, doctors are an artificially constrained supply which vastly increases pay vs. other progressions. In many counties they make comparable salaries to US programmers which don't need collage degrees.
A Law degree from a 3rd rate school on the other hand is not so constrained and outside of 'top' schools which again are a limited supply tend to have minimal benefit.
