Doctors were widely considered quacks until the 50s/60s. "Scienctist" never had much cache unless they were inventors that made money. There was a brief time when being a scientist was pretigious in the 50s/60s, and that was mostly tied to the Space Race and the cold war.

I don’t accept your characterizations in the second paragraph tbh. My impression is that there was a significant working and middle class cohort, from the 1920s, if you like, to the mid 90s, who viewed education as their children’s way to respectability and agency. The parents might not have been educated themselves but they believed in it’s value and liked the thought that they were contributing to society by producing educated children.

Capitalists have never seen the value in things that don't directly make money. That's always been a feature of the bourgeoisie. I think a lot of people have mixed up conceptions and think that the mid-20th century was the norm whereas in reality, the modern day is much closer to what Capitalism always has been than the 50s through the 80s. The Fox media complex was the past was preachers, radio, etc.