Maybe Businesses can sue the schools for turning out poor quality employees. A Sector could agree to a set of standards all employees must meet for their given discipline. Instead of firing employees for poor performance, maybe they could sue the colleges and universities for a loss of productivity etc. Then fire the poor performing employee, and that ex-employee in turn sues the same school for creating the problem.
The trouble with that is that it'll clog the courts and encourage the lawyers.
The REAL problem is that an education is not really prized. Oh, everybody knows that more education = more $$$ in a vague sense, but in fact, especially in minority communities, education is seen as "acting white" and is shunned.
A kid should be responsible for his own education after a certain point, but if all your friends discourage you, are you gonna get new friends, or go along?