Education for its own sake needn’t be expensive but trying to force it on the unwilling doesn’t work and makes things worse for those who actually want it by mi

Education for its own sake needn’t be expensive but trying to force it on the unwilling doesn’t work and makes things worse for those who actually want it by mixing in people who don’t actually care into their classes. If twelve years of primary and secondary school can’t awaken intellectual interests for more years in college won’t either. We know it doesn’t work for literature because most people don’t read for pleasure and those who do mostly don’t read literature. That is the easiest one besides possibly music, where again the academically favoured version is wildly less popular than what is generally consumed. Forcing education on people does amazingly little to change their tastes. If democracy doesn’t work if citizens aren't educated how did it work before universal primary or secondary education? The US, UK and France among others had a wide franchise long before a high school education was normative. And education doesn’t even make informed citizens. Only 40% of the US population can name all three branches of government. Most people are ignorant of civics in all countries. You can’t make people retain information they neither use not care about but you can make their childhoods worse by wasting their time. Forcing a simulacrum of education on the unwilling or unenthusiastic has low, low returns in knowledge.