I agree with that, but a comparable education is explicitly not a goal of mine. My question is whether it would make a comparable workforce, and to that end I

I agree with that, but a comparable education is explicitly not a goal of mine. My question is whether it would make a comparable workforce, and to that end I suspect it would. In my mind, the purpose of the government funding education is a return on investment. They're expecting to get more back than they put in over a long enough time horizon. The goal isn't education for the sake of education, it's to create an educated workforce that can produce higher value goods and services. We can put public money to better use than education for the sake of it. If people want to learn for the sake of it, they can use the library or YouTube or pay for a teacher. We've got other problems like people without healthcare or homes, climate crisis, a terrible foster care system, etc. Put the money towards that instead of paying for massive buildings and staff to teach everyone underwater basket-weaving so they're "well-rounded".