What makes you think that we squander that potential? If anything, we seem to try to extract as much potential out of people as possible, given sky-high college

What makes you think that we squander that potential? If anything, we seem to try to extract as much potential out of people as possible, given sky-high college attendance rates and that we aren't really getting much out of it, given that most of that education is really just used for signalling. I personally don't see any evidence that we could get that much more out of the population and I think we even overemphasize education, leading to debt and underemployment.