Apples and Oranges. There are essentially three levels of education. Primary, Secondary, and Post-Secondary. Primary and Secondary are already funded (in their entirety). Post-Secondary is not, I support the platform to provide free tuition for Post-Secondary schooling of public universities. All this changes is public (public mind you) universities receive price ceilings for tuition rates and those rates are subsidized by the government.

Extending it another four years will just essentially be increasing highschool another four years.

College is already an option, a very expensive one. This isn't about incorporating college education into the K-12 system. It's about funding for college. Post-secondary education is a completely different system under different rules and regulations.

This has absolutely nothing to do with enlightenment - do you feel enlightened after leaving highschool? Government run college will just become the same old petty bullshit.

Yes I do, because I learned a lot in high school. Although the system is severely underfunded due to a federal funding focus on defense. I learned more than I would have, had I not been given the opportunity to participate in free education that has increased my worldly prospects ten-fold.

I'm not suggesting college should be as expensive as it is (the current method is terrible), but another 4 years added to education will get the average united citizen nowhere intellectually. The culture in the United States is simply not ready for anything like this.

I don't really understand this argument, again post-secondary education is completely different which is why its not funded in the same way. All that changes is no matter your income, you can acquire a public education tuition free. That's all, that's how its fixed. We join the rest of the industrialized world and say, whether you're rich or poor, you deserve the same education.

Otherwise it stays the same. The rich get the best education, the poor either toss themselves into debt (with unbelievably high interest rates btw) or don't receive an education at all.

This isn't some fantasy, we're actually one of the only major industrialized nations that DOESN'T do it. It really can happen.

It also doesn't make public college compulsory, it just makes it tuition free.