[thwarted]

BLASPHEMY! You may be thinking, education is PARAMOUNT to any civilization! We musn't cut spending on education!

Yeah, and it's unfortunate that "education" often has a capital E and is viewed as being something that only formalized schools, Big Education, can provide.

Spending money on things like internet access, libraries, encouraging greater literacy and reading, and not banning "educational toys" just because they may be perceived of as dangerous (I'm thinking of things like chemistry sets here, which were a lot more fun and educational back in the day) could end up going a long way to increasing the minimum education level without actually requiring people to throw money at schools to have to attend them.