1.) You cannot have a nation of college degree high skilled workers. At least until robots and AI are widespread. Being rich is a lot less fun when you cannot spend it anywhere, because none of those places have a staff.
2.) Since people aren't having kids, and we love to saddle the future with liabilities, someone has to fill that void.
All the hot shot AI inventory management software in the world is useless without grunts actually executing it's guidance on the ground.