Financial aid is available for many, many students, and targeted at those unable to pay. They may be called scholarships, or bursaries, or tuition fees waivers, or whatever. A LOT of money (or equivalents) is given to students who are not in the top 10% of performers.

Scholarships for the best students are given partly to obtain or retain those students to the institution. If I have offers from Harvard and Princeton, but one will give me $20K, that influences my choice and that school gets a star student. That’s competition.

Those same schools ALSO subsidize places for students who are unable to pay. Of course some students are in both categories.

Wild pitch, but maybe we give everyone an education since we need educated people to have a functioning modern society?