Unless you're thinking of huge online courses like Udacity/Coursera, I don't think that's really a thing?
If it is, I'd be fascinated to learn more.
I mean, the logistics would be pretty wild - even a large university's largest lecture theatres might only have 500 seats. And they'd only have one or two that large. It'd be expensive as hell to build a university that could handle multiple subjects each admitting over a thousand students.
At least in Belgium it's quite common for a lot of students to fail the first year (partly due to the difficulty, partly due to partying instead of studying). But it's not like it's really free, the tuition is cheap but the accomodation is expensive. I also don't think it's particularly difficult on purpose to filter out students, it's just that it's not overly expensive and a lot of people are unsure about what to study.
If it is, I'd be fascinated to learn more.
I mean, the logistics would be pretty wild - even a large university's largest lecture theatres might only have 500 seats. And they'd only have one or two that large. It'd be expensive as hell to build a university that could handle multiple subjects each admitting over a thousand students.