Before the concept of “tuition free classes” meant “it costs nothing”, Britain was working with the idea of “anyone can take the class for free, but you have to pay a fee to take the final - and you can’t pass the class without taking the final.” Instead of having students take out loans and then something happens to them such that they can’t pass the class or they get so far behind that they know they will fail the class, they make the decision a week or so before the class is over to take out the loan. With everyone moving to post-videos-auto-graded-homework-online-only, the only real per-student cost is grading the exams anyway.