Society, the collective, has a stake in education. A primary rationale for publicly-supported education is the social benefit or externality of an educated citizenry. In a democracy, the ability of my neighbor to reason and to criticize thoughtfully influences my own well-being. In an market economy with employees and employers free to begin and end relationships at will, an individual company will not pay to educate an employee who may leave at will, and an individual or family may not pay for all the education that would be beneficial to employers. If we are to have an educated populace, we must jointly shoulder some of the cost.
Society has a stake in education at localized levels, as well as overall.
While people are highly mobile, especially in times of social crisis and at certain times in individuals lives, people do have attachments to places. For example, exactly one-third of those surveyed UW Ph.D. recipients have remained in Washington State, despite the range of employment opportunities elsewhere. Maintaining high standards of education for its population is one of the best measures that a place a state, for example can take to insure its social and economic well-being. Society has a stake in the education of all its citizens. The outcomes of democratic processes depend on the exposure of all potential voters to the history of thought, the lessons of history, and the reasoning of science.