Geez, I had not only algebra, but advanced algebra, trigonometry, statistics, plain and solid geometry, and calculus by 12th grade. I’ve used all of it from time to time. Lack of education is one of the problems the US faces. Knowing that something exists is no substitute for actually knowing that something.
When I got to college I didn’t need to waste course time with math - and was waved.
When I became a welder I need much of that math to make the right angled cuts, lengths and correct weld depths.
If you don’t know math, or are at least passing familiar, how are you going to help your kids when they need it?
Education is a joke in this country these days and mostly consists of rote learning, passing over reading, writing and math. Then rapidly moving on to climate, social justice issues, and ‘fantasy’ US history - wherein kids learn to be good voters for the Democrat party, and never learn how to learn; never learning the self-discipline of long hours of home work each night.
I lump Trig in with Geometry.
Algebra 2 through Calc is baked into whatever software system used in whatever specific application folks end up doing.
Engineers were surveyed about when the last time they integrated or took a derivative, and the number was in the single digit percentages. I did that research for a econ development project I was hired to do for a county in 2015.
Today, a college education and a dollar doesn’t buy coffee. A CCNA, MS SQL cert, or some such similar cert gets you a job.
Most of the people we recruit out of engineering schools are simply not ready in anything, regardless of what they took in school.