Well another major wrench in the system is that because education is largely regulated by the states rather than the federal government, they can have very wide degrees of variance between education quality, oversight, and quantity of subjects studied.
This can be good (for instance, as a Californian, I was given the opportunity to take a 4 year engineering course series in high school that helped propel me into studying Electrical Engineering right now in college), but can also be bad due to negligence by the state to maintain and audit schools, along with issues of content erasure or censorship (Texas and Florida being the most blatant examples).
Additionally, this can lead to the "Name school prestige" problem where employers largely focus on students who graduated from elite colleges or universities with higher barriers of entry (Money) and reputable quality, while neglecting students who may have undergone the same rigorous studies at a school that's not as well known. (With students only holding a High School diploma left in the dust)
