Society is not structured to encourage this. Getting a job sooner is more lucrative. Any breakthough you make having studied for a couple of decades is property of a corporation not you.
I wish more people understood this and the value that it would add to society. For some reason most people understand how roads and transit improve commerce, but fail to understand how education and social support for the individual does as well.
But for sciences, someone could do great work for 20 years and produce obscure papers that might stay obscure, or may unlock the mystery of the universe or help us meet the world's energy demands without pollution! So the pay off if magnitudes higher than sport, but magnitudes less probable. Someone will run 100m fast, guaranteed, but will we solve science problems X Y Z and when?