You mention that education is starved of funds. That's part of the reason the Republicans built the National Debt, to prevent social programs, including education, that might help the democrats politically.

Now if you want something really weird, human survival will depend on the interaction between the basic lessons of philosophy and our moral and survival instincts. Here's my boilerplate:

World War I demonstrated the power and wealth of science. The ancient war between science and religion was decisively won in the 1925 Scopes trial, but religion was not the only thing damaged. Philosophy was a collateral casualty. What if that victory by science was Pyric? Science is a jealous mistress. It claims all authority over knowledge and truth, even though it is not good at teaching understanding or even reason. STEM is almost all we teach now, besides perhaps art. (Luckily this is incorrect.) No Home Economics, no Civics, no Phys Ed, no Manual Arts... What else was lost and does it hurt science? It does. It hurts so many things. Philosophy used to be taught in grammar school. It needs to be again, for science, for healthy families, for mental health, for healthy societies, for so many things. It is the foundation our science, knowledge, government and even our civilization was built upon. They shall not endure without it.

I'm primarily a biologist so I usually have different views from what is common. I was analyzing the issue of population decline and though it is obviously includes issues of economics and concerns about the future, those are not new problems. I finally came up with another conclusion and it might apply to this situation as well. Certain human instincts are not being developed as they need to be, particularly moral instincts. Instincts are like muscles and need to be developed. Morals are the combination of moral instincts and moral training. There is a reason we don't have enough moral training. We do get some of it from culture, but it is not enough exercise. We need to start formally teaching the basics of phislophy in grammar school, like it used to be. It is the only way to release the moral instincts we need to survive and have families.

There's more about this if you want:

https://working-for-the-future.medium.com/just-a-thought-for-you-db55164d556