The problem with wholesale prices driving towards zero is how do you recover costs associated with security of supply. It's great that solar makes wholesale prices zero throughout the day. But if generators can't recover the cost of their investments, then they'll eventually decommission those plants.
There are different types of power plants such as Peaker Plants (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peaking_power_plant) that can start quickly (within minutes) to provide security of supply against renewables. However, they are quite a bit more expensive to operate, which means wholesale prices will need to increase in order to make money with them.
Source - I work for one of New Zealand's largest electricity generators.
In New Zealand the government pays about 75% of tuition costs in the first place (a degree is around $5000 NZD a year), there's a student allowance if your parents earn under a certain threshold, and your student loan is interest free as long as you remain in New Zealand.
I don't understand why so many Science Fiction authors attempt push the limits of material science while clearly being almost entirely ignorant of it. For example, carbon fiber composites do bend. You can make springs out of them. Also, if you could figure out how to manufacture anti-gravity thrusters at a scale large enough to use them on a space ship you'd probably win the Nobel.
I live in New Zealand, and the system is neither completely liberalized, or deregulated, and works fine.
There is a public healthcare system that is paid for by taxes. The quality is really good generally, though rationalisation does happen with time, so we have quite big waiting lists.
However, there is also a private medical system that you're free to use. The largest one is actually a non-for-profit insurance society, and they run a chain of hospitals as well. If the public system is overloaded, sometimes Health Boards (government) will pay private hospitals to do operations.
Either way, medical insurance is really cheap, optional, and healthcare is seen as a right between the government and the citizen, not some weird relationship with an employer.
There are different types of power plants such as Peaker Plants (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peaking_power_plant) that can start quickly (within minutes) to provide security of supply against renewables. However, they are quite a bit more expensive to operate, which means wholesale prices will need to increase in order to make money with them.
Source - I work for one of New Zealand's largest electricity generators.