Famous story of Euclid's response to a student who asked what gain he would get from studying geometry, "Give him three obols, since he must needs make gain out of what he learns."

In the US we've been constantly told a university education is a sure route to a high paying job.  A half-truth since most high paying jobs require technical knowledge easiest and quickest to acquire at a school of higher learning.  The other half of the truth: studying and acquiring knowledge to deepen understanding or only for the joy of learning, is hard to justify in a predatory capitalist climate where scientists, engineers, and other intellectuals are effectively 'hired guns,' or mercenaries, useful to our Masters only as much as we twiddle around making things capable of maximizing profits over the shortest amount of time.

She believed in nothing; only her skepticism kept her from being an atheist. -- Jean-Paul Sartre