I don't dislike this...however, to say it is "free" is disingenuous. Are the professors going to take pay cuts? Are they going to sell buildings? Are they going to teach by candlelight to save electricity or are they just going to get free electricity?
What this means is that someone else (tax payers or kids who's families make $100,000+) will cover those costs. If they say no, we have a big pile of money we are going to use that we just have sitting around it begs the question of how that pile of money was created and from what sources? Why is it not being used to lower tuition across the board, or improve the overall education being taught, and why was tuition too high to begin with?
To the $15K per year number, my guess is that for many students who have household income below $100K they are receiving some or maybe substantial amounts of federal aids and grants (not a bad thing), so the UT system is not covering Full costs for these students but only the delta between previous aid and zero which should be significantly less. I would be curious to see the analysis done to estimate the average tuition removal for students falling into this bucket and how that compares to the average tuition paid by other students.
I also can't wait to see people turn down raises or pay increases in order to continue to not broach the $100K threshold. Somewhat kidding about this, but I am sure there will be cases where people/families face this issue especially if it is not a graduated tuition break based on household income.