[maxerickson]

I imagine most doctors would be just fine as doctors if they graduated from high school at age 16 and also skipped 1 year (maybe 2) of undergrad.

A great way to spend more money on education would be to target lowering high school graduation age to 17, with at least a year of training oriented education for students that weren't interested in an academic track and a faster academic track for students that did want it. The idea that everybody gets value out of Algebra II is pretty confused and at my Big 10 university, I often knew more history on days I hadn't done the reading than most of the people in my discussion class (that is, our "well prepared" high school students aren't coming out of high school well rounded anyway, lets drop the pretense).