> High schools can't really do that, unless they are structured more like universities.

That's not true. There's a very large gap between graduating 18 year old's who are only good for box-stacking, making coffee or going to college (with a lot of help in all cases) and actually graduating people who can deliver value to an employer and is culturally ready for society.

Take critical thinking as an easy example. Or logic, philosophy, art, music, trades and other important areas that would benefit society if exposed during the K-12 period.

I say this both as a parent and an employer.

The average high school graduate is useless to me, in almost any capacity.

The average college graduate isn't very far from that. This isn't new, it has been discussed here on HN many times in the past. Small to medium companies don't have the time or resources to engage in education after education. This is where this concept of wasting a year of a student's time with coursework nobody cares about is very relevant.

As for my own kids, I made sure to heavily supplement their US high school education with learning that made them valuable upon graduation. A simple result from this was landing knowledge-based jobs making more than $35/hr right out of high school, when their peers where struggling with minimum wage work almost throughout their university experience.

As a result of that, my oldest had a solid financial footing when he was done with university. All of this was due to education prior to college, in this case, driven my my efforts and those of my wife. Schools could do this. It isn't difficult. And it sure isn't a matter of money, not today.

This kind of thing would materially change society and outcomes at all levels. It would increase opportunity at all layers of the population. There is no inherent reason for which lower income households could not have their children receive a solid, useful and marketable education in high school. We just suck at doing it.

My personal experience, from many decades ago and in systems of education outside and inside the US, was to walk away from high school with lots of marketable skills. I had no problems at all delivering value to any employers. I did not accumulate any student debt in university in the US because I had solid employment the entire time and was paid very well as I built on the foundation I got in high school.

Simple example, I had two years of technical drafting. One of my first jobs was doing exactly that. And then AutoCAD came out. Because I had a position drafting with pencil and paper I was given the opportunity to learn ACAD and a very nice raise. Things evolved from there. And, no I did not attend a trade school. We just had more opportunities to learn things in school than kids have today.

High schools don't have to become full-blown university level for this to become a reality. Furthermore, we tend to make the assumption that everyone is, or should be, college-bound. That's a mistake. Not everyone needs to waste time with Calculus, Physics and Chemistry. I say "waste time" because these topic areas are utterly without value for lots of professions. One could easily teach a "general science education" course and move on. One of my very favorite talks on the subject of fitting education to the student is by Sir Ken Robinson:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iG9CE55wbtY

This is important...and we almost completely ignore it and force every child into the same mold. At some level one could say this is abusive.