When putting GDP per capita on a log, there is a 95% correlation with the mean years of schooling for countries in the dataset I’ve been curating for a long time.
It’s not surprising really. So the policy then becomes very clear that if you want to increase your GDP, make it easier for people to go to school for more time, including college. We do this by subsidizing education at all levels. The data shows that boosts GDP significantly, in fact it is the only way to improve your economy. With a better economy, people live longer lives. You have more money to spend on health care as people are living longer, which I suspect is the mechanism behind it, which explains why the United States has a slightly lower life expectancy (a couple years under the standard deviation) than one would predict from our education and income.
So slashing education funding is a great way to lower the income of your country and live a shorter life.
If we want countries like Afghanistan to develop, than it is a very good investment to stabilize the country and educate children. Other research points that inequality and violence are positively correlated. So increasing education for a country so everyone has the chance to succeed should reduce inequality, lowering violence. Increasing education will increase both life expectancy and income.
Basically, if you want your country to be wealthy, healthy, and live a long life, do the opposite of Trump’s domestic policy.