This wasn't about allowing higher education, it was about subsidizing it with tax money.
Except that if higher education costs more than somebody has, they aren't exactly being "allowed" to achieve it. Whether by the institution itself (if it's private) or indirectly by the government (if it's public). They aren't allowed to attend because they don't have money.
Not that it's impossible to contribute to society and better oneself without attending college, of course. But in our modern economy it does make it substantially more difficult.
It's not the American way for government to provide a college education with taxpayer dollars. It's our own duty to educate ourselves. It's the government's job to protect us from enemies and protect our rights, not to give us handouts paid for by others. Nor is it American for me to have to pay for someone's education who isn't even a citizen of this country.
See, and setting aside the whole "not a citizen" thing (since you don't agree with financial aid in general) I think you may be looking at it the wrong way. On average a college-educated student makes significantly more than a non-college-educated one. This is a fact. At that point, rather than seeing it as taking money from you to pay for somebody's education, it'd probably be more useful to look at it as an investment in a future taxpayer; because I'd wager that in many cases the extra tax revenue alone covers a fair portion of any "direct" aid given to students (Pell Grants, temporary subsidization of interest on Stafford Loans, etc).
I know for a fact that I will return through increased taxes (due to increased wages) over my lifetime
every last dime I've taken in grants/subsidization of loans. With interest. As will most people. They're
investing your money, not spending it. And getting a rather decent return on it. Considering they've been doing this for decades, it's quite possible that you've actually seen a
positive return on that investment, in the form of lower taxes than you might otherwise have paid (due to increased tax revenue from college-educated taxpayers who otherwise wouldn't have).
And if you honestly think we should do away with all governmental subsidization of schools (goodbye state university systems, for instance) then I'd have to wonder what the overall effect on the economy from that would be. Since through everything from educating future generations of workers (and keeping us competitive with other countries that wouldn't be cutting educational funding) to research those institutions actually contribute substantially to the economy; which comes back to the treasury in the form of taxes.
Seeing it as "providing a college education with taxpayer dollars" is a pretty simplistic viewpoint; I'll admit that I'm likely outside my expertise here, but I'd be interested to see a more detailed economic assessment of the positive/negative impact the subsidization of college education actually has on the treasury.
Of course, again I think the system as it stands gets horribly abused. Whether or not the government should subsidize education in general is a topic for debate; I can't imagine
anybody defending the idea that the government should be paying for students who can not (or simply do not) perform at the college level to attend. Yet as it stands we do so all too often.
Anyway, my point is that if you honestly don't believe that we should be subsidizing higher education
at all (even for citizens) then you really aren't adding much to this particular discussion; if you don't think citizens should be receiving such funds
obviously you wouldn't think non-citizens should. If you don't believe the system should exist at all you aren't going to add much to a discussion of who that system should cover and why.
And again, unless Romney is running on a platform of doing away with all financial aid (and subsidization of state universities) then I don't think his comment applies in the way you're trying to apply it. Maybe that's actually his platform, I'm not intimately familiar with it. But I doubt it.
EDIT: Looking at data from 2006, the median income for somebody with a bachelor's degree is about $13K higher than for somebody with a high school diploma. Figure over 30-40 working years, I'd say it's reasonable to say that the federal government likely recoups any money spent on financial aid for a college graduate; especially since most financial aid given is in the form of loans, rather than grants, and thus is paid back by the student (minus some small portion of subsidized interest). As for at the state level (with state scholarships, subsidization of universities) they probably recoup pretty easily as well, since people who make more money spend quite a bit more in state taxes as well (ranging from income taxes to property taxes to sales taxes). And again, that's ignoring the general benefit to the entire economy from having a significant pool of educated workers. I'd
really be interested to see a detailed economic analysis on this, but I don't have time to look for one at the moment. *shrug*