> Sure, the median is often better than the arithmetic mean to summarize a population, but in this case, you're misapplying the median to falsely imply that graduation rate is irrelevant as long as it's less than 50% of the population.

We're doing a snap-shot comparison of the life of someone around the middle of the income demographic. The median person does not complete college in either the U.S. or France. (Even among those 25-34, college attainment rates are less than 40% in both countries.) In reality, most people don't really need to go to college, or aren't cut out for tertiary education.

So it's really important to ask how much college is worth to someone in the middle when, statistically, that person won't be going to college, and may not be qualified to go to college.

That is especially important when you're talking about asking people in the middle to pay for something that disproportionately benefits people in the top half. France's tax system is quite regressive: https://www.oecd.org/tax/revenue-statistics-france.pdf. While the U.S. collects almost half its tax revenue from income and corporate taxes (which are disproportionately paid by the upper classes), France collects just 23% of revenue from those sources. France relies much more heavily on payroll and sales taxes, which are disproportionately paid for by the middle class. So, statistically, someone right at the median is paying for this free college system, but is unlikely to actually take advantage of it.

> The reality is that tuition is a barrier to enrollment and completion, so eliminating it with public funding makes sense if you care about investing in your country's future.

Graduation rate is only relevant to the extent that it increases your country's average income. If you can, like Germany, maintain a high average income with a relatively low graduation rate, that's better than having to send more people to college (which imposes a large opportunity cost) to achieve the same average income. Regardless, college degree attainment rates in the U.S. have been much higher than in France for decades. France only catches up in the youngest demographic (29-34): https://www.in.gov/che/files/DMatthews.pdf. Your median voter is still in a demographic (35-44), where the college attainment rate in the U.S. is 39% versus just 23% in France.

> For a more meaningful glimpse into the reality of these countries' commutes, check out this worldwide ranking of the 10 best and 10 worst cities by commute experience [1]. France takes 4 out of the 10 best spots (Nice, Toulouse, Lyon, Strasbourg).

You're reading it wrong. The first chart is data from 1999 to 2010. I'm referencing the table after that, which focuses on 2008-2010. For all commuters, France has an average commute of 73 minutes, versus 48 minutes for the U.S.

> For a more meaningful glimpse into the reality of these countries' commutes, check out this worldwide ranking of the 10 best and 10 worst cities by commute experience [1]. France takes 4 out of the 10 best spots (Nice, Toulouse, Lyon, Strasbourg).

The OECD data set is a much better basis of comparison. Comparing commutes in big cities is not particularly relevant in the U.S., because most Americans do not live in a big city. Commute times in New York or Washington, D.C. are 70+ minutes round-trip, as similar to the average in France: https://www.census.gov/content/dam/Census/library/visualizat... (note the data is one-way, so double it to compare to the OECD chart above). Although, Paris is even worse at 90+ minutes round-trip: https://www.thelocal.fr/20160418/parisians-spend-23-days-a-y.... But even by the time you get to Atlanta you're significantly better than the French average, and in Iowa or North Dakota you're looking at a commute that's half as long as the average in France.

> I'd rather read on a train than die a little inside a car.

Have you been in a French metro during commuting times? It's not like you can really sit down and read. You're standing up the whole time scrunched up against other people.