I think free education is wonderful, but it's not always possible for governments to pay for it, I suppose. I think as we move more into online modes of teaching at universities, it should definitely be possible to provide more free education.

In Australia we have primary school (years Prep to 6), high/secondary school (years 7 to 12) and then university. Primary and secondary school are free if you go to a public school, or your parents can spend a bunch sending you to a private school. University was free for a long time but fees were introduced back in the 80s or something, maybe. I dunno. These days, loans are available from the government to pay for university fees (but not living expenses), which must be paid back once you earn a certain amount of money. The cost depends on the course and subjects you are doing. All in all, my 4 year science course came to about AU$30,000. Because it is a science course, it's probably a bit cheaper than others as the government likes to push science/maths etc. Once you get your undergrad degree out of the way, scholarships are available to do doctorates, which include living expenses, though it comes out to less than minimum wage if you add up the number of hours you actually work. xD Scholarships are only available to the top students and are generally difficult to get.

Recently, the government is trying to allow universities to set their own fee amounts which means they can charge $100,000+ for degrees if they want to. Of course, the more prestigious universities will take advantage of this and charge very high fees, which people will still pay because the university has a good name. For some unknown reason the government seems intent on introducing a more American system, which is probably the worst idea I've ever heard. :P But they just want universities to make more money so they can stop having to fund universities so much.

I don't think free education will necessarily cause us to lose service workers or anything like that. Further education is just not right for some people. I have students every day who just don't try and clearly only went to uni because they didn't know what else to do or were expected to. Tertiary education in Australia is very accessible to anyone with no upfront fees, so making it free probably wouldn't make more people attend anyway. I do like our system though, and I think it is much fairer compared to other countries were you need to pay heaps of money or get a scholarship to even have a chance of attending university.

I believe primary and secondary education should definitely be freely available because they teach essential life skills which everyone really needs to contribute to society.