I dunno, I think society is best served by educating as many people as possible. I would much rather live in a world where anyone who wants a quality education can get one.
But at a certain point, you're wasting time and effort trying (and failing) to teach students what they're unlikely to, and ultimately won't, use afterward. "You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make them drink." Meanwhile, as GP noted, students who are interested in a "quality education" can't get one, because the quality is diminished by number of students, many who aren't interested. In order to provide the best education to the most people, we must optimize; cutting people who aren't learning means we can better educate those who are.
Learning specific physics formulas has its place, but learning the principles behind the formulas is far more valuable, though harder to measure.