The metric system is widely used in the U.S. school system? That is news to me.
In the 80s I was doing metric conversions in years 4 or 5.
But in my university engineering labs on machining and machine tools, it was all taught in inches and feet. Not sure if that's because that's what industry used. I never entered my career as a manufacturing engineer.
In other engineering disciplines (except maybe civil), it's all metric. You won't hear EEs talking about semiconductor feature sizes in fractions of an inch.