This is a problem that many people are trying to solve. The current US education system is geared towards producing mostly blue collar workers, and promoting a

This is a problem that many people are trying to solve. The current US education system is geared towards producing mostly blue collar workers, and promoting a few geniuses to white collar by funneling them to Universities. We definitely need to change it to emphasize more on practical skills, or at least skills that encourage further learning. I imagine a kid who loves learning would be capable of picking up skills like Mathematics etc. reasonably well, while a trained but burned out PhD mathematician might just have lost all love for his anointed subject. I've actually seen this happen firsthand as a college student: my fellow students who had worked intensely through prep schools were absolutely burnt out by the effort and had no interest in academics for the first couple of years.