Economically, education is a public subsidy that helps private wealth. Taxpayers pay for your worker training for free. In exchange society makes some demands on the educational process, primarily that it spend some amount of time preparing students to be responsible citizens/members of society alongside the office drone prep these gifted programs want to accelerate.

Keeping all the smart kids locked in an ivory tower where they don't have to deal with humanity or ever get any context into how society actually works is how you get Ayn Rand afficionados well past the age-appropriate teenage years, and nobody wants that.