I don't know how far this extends, though. I live in an area where nearly anyone who wants to can get an affordable college education (and, I'd venture to guess, very close to free in most cases). And yet the graduation rate is abysmal. The fact is the higher ed path is a round hole and many people are square pegs. We can't just turn everyone into a highly educated skilled worker. I agree with the other posters that a wealthy country should have a dignity threshold for the members of their society, but I'm come to realize education may not be the main pathway to get there.
The USA and many other countries already have a surplus of people with college degrees that have no real value from a job skills perspective (elite overproduction). Future job growth is likely to be concentrated in skilled labor fields as we re-industrialize. We should probably shift some funding away from universities, and towards community colleges and trade schools.
No need to compare, that happened in the US.
It's not an either / or. If the US were to invest more in education and developing the economy everywhere, there would be more jobs beyond low paid "unskilled" labour. That is, at the moment there's too much demand in low paid jobs, too little in e.g. college or uni level positions, and too much supply of people desperate enough for a job to take something below the standards of living.
Compare with my country, which during the pandemic saw a large amount of people in the service industry change jobs, because during the pandemic a lot of restaurants and the like were closed. When those opened up again, they found themselves with a shortage of staff, leading to the ones that still worked in the industry to be in a strong negotiating position and have their wages increased significantly.
Take away the supply - by increasing supply of higher-paid and diverse jobs everywhere - and low wage jobs become higher paid jobs automatically. In theory.