The problem isn't comparative advantage, it's that the US left the poor states to languish with poor education. So instead of higher quality manufacturing / blue collar jobs, non-educated folks got minimum wage service jobs.
Spending does not equal outcomes.
As a side note, the US has the second highest public spending per capita (second only to Norway, last I checked). Our Government spends more per citizen than all but one "socialist" country. We then of course spend another doubling of that in private expenditures, and, yes, get worse outcomes.
The US is in a very bad spot.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_total_hea...
And knowledge jobs are jobs for smart people. Most people are not smart enough to do those jobs and no amount of money spent on education (the US spends more than almost every other western country, at every level) can change that.
Why didn't state funding pick up the tab?