Math major here. Go for it CA. The current "STEM pipeline" is garbage and underserving. A larger populace not excluded from the pipeline (because it wont exist) and not being turned off by math before high school is actually a step in the right direction.

It will take an economy the size of CA to upend things, and they need to be upended. If it's progressive to have a larger base of the mathematically literate, then so be it.

The current system just hires who resembles the incumbents the most. I think that can be broken if enough students and resources go another direction.

Math is no different than any other subject at its core. So it needs to go back to being a regular subject, not among the few in the pipeline, which should never have existed. (Why do I need 3 sophomore level prerequisites, Applied Linear Algebra, Calc 3, Diff Eq's, for a junior level class, mathematical modeling? And there's worse examples at my university too, I followed the least pipelined path. That structure doesn't exist as directed for most subjects. The pipeline needs to go. Math doesn't have to be this way).