When I asked in high school what math was for to some professors, they said it was more to 'improve your thinking' than to use it in 'real life'. Now, a math course designed to be progressively easy to grasp, personalized when needed, entertaining and showing lots of examples from real life (e.g. relating algebra with 3d and video games) requires a very talented educator; teaching well is really hard and usually there's not enough time or resources to do it. That's why I think one of the most important skills to develop is to learn how to learn.