The way math and physics was taught at school vs university makes a world of difference. You leave high school without a basic understanding of science, yet you had to learn what schroedinger equation was.
Then you do not understand what kWh on you power bill means and how this is related to your lamp or keetle.
If math and physics was taught with pragmatism and not the idiotic idea that everyone needs to know everything then we would have more people interested in science.
Same for coding taught at school. You start with data structures. WTF? I do not care what a dict is before I can imagine a useful usage case.
I taught my kids to write code with a lot of handwaving first, than with a lot "you go get what this means later" and now they code. They are not big fans but it will be peanuts for then to go through coding curriculum at school. All it took were two evenings and a bit of minecraft.