Why do you want your child to "study their ass off"? I'd expect the answer is something along the lines that they'll be able to work their ass off for an employer later in life. Perhaps your child has caught onto this and is not interested. I never have been either.
I am around ~40 now. The Asian/Russian Jewish kids I grew up with whose parents made them "study their ass off" are now by-and-large folks with families, homes, interesting and challenging careers, etc.
The kids who didn't... aren't. I want to give my kids a better shot at a better outcome in life. There's no guarantees but I want to maximize their chances and knowing how to learn and work is a key input to that.
You mentioned in another post some pointless teacher-pleasing that you engaged in, I am not sure why you think that's the only or even a common path. Most of these kids I am talking about adopted their parents' "invest in yourself" mentality, and also by-and-large found their studies challenging and interesting. You seem to be taking your own worst-case and projecting it onto the world.
What's worse - my worst-case or those kids you mention who didn't make it? I fully agree with you that the country is brutal to the uneducated, forced as they are into low status (and yet often surprisingly socially important) jobs which provide marginal incomes. I'm not willing to use "Shame, guilt, social pressure, and beatings if necessary" (as a sibling commenter of mine suggested) on a child to enforce this system in which we reside. Are you?
There was actually a recent article on this subject in The Cut
The author's son seems to already be experiencing the existential dread of this system in kindergarten. Meanwhile rates of teenage depression and suicide increase while life expectancy in the US decreases. I'll never understand this place.
