Feels like the places where academia doesn't require lots of money are getting fewer and fewer. e.g. university is basically free in Germany, but if your parents don't have enough money to pay for your living expenses you're going to have a difficult time. When I went to university in Germany 20 years ago, government subsidies (that are paid out as a credit btw, you always had to pay it back) were very adequate to pay for those living expensive, but apartment rents exploded since then.

On top of that, Germany's school system is rather classist, so children who aren't from wealthy or educated households are much less likely to qualify for university in the first place.

If you live in Oklahoma it actually doesnt take any work, you can just say "Jesus" and you get a degree

It's called auditing a class, pretty much every university has a mechanism for this. Otherwise though you'd get caught pretty quick when it turns out I don't have a record of you. In some 600+ person weedout class you wouldn't, but any smaller group lecture you'd get noticed on the 1st day when taking roll for waitlist placement.

Yeah, I think it could definitely be done, but unfortunately it would be completely not worth the time since you wouldn't have any degree.

In Germany, university is basically free and at least when I went, expensive textbooks weren't a thing at all. But you still have to have a way to pay for your living expenses, good luck trying to finish a degree when you're working 20+ hours a week. Of course it can be done (depending on the workload in your specific degree), but once any kind of issue arises (e.g. mental health issues, or even just breaking a leg) there's a very high risk that you're going to drop out.