Is education worth spending money on?

The fellow who replaced Rep. Eric Cantor (R-VA), the House Majority Leader (Second in the House after the Speaker) has an, uh, interesting view of education and spending. "My hero Socrates trained in Plato on a rock. How much did that cost? So the greatest minds in history became the greatest minds in history without spending a lot of money." He has a lot of other strange views. Personally, I read I.F. Stone's “The Trial of Socrates” and was left considerably less than impressed with Socrates. I think he was far too abstract a thinker and could have been more down-to-earth and immediately practical. I had read Plato's “The Republic” in Junior High (Called Middle School these days) and recall having been pretty unimpressed by that as well. So no, I don't agree with Rep. David Brat as neither Plato nor Socrates count as “my hero.”