> What's 'paid' to the median child in education is a pittance compared to what the payers suck back out of them in old age during social security.

I'm not sure what nation you're from, but here, in the US, we pay a fairly significant part of our wages towards something called "Social Security."

If we pay a lot, during our working time, we can draw more, after retirement (and it is nowhere near a living wage -it was never meant to be).

In my country, we pay for education with property taxes.