To a large extent, the onus is on the teacher to generate interest. Most teaching until uni is mostly forced upon students.
I'd argue honestly until graduate school too. Undergrad still has a lot of required courses that aren't directly related to your major, and it can be draining.
I'm not saying this is a "bad" thing, having a well rounded education is important, but it's still a lot of stuff that a lot of students don't want to do.
Graduate school is more fun, and in some senses kind of easier (for want of a better word). Sure, the work is "harder" on an objective level, but by the time you've made it to grad school you're probably studying a subject that you think is interesting, so you don't mind powering through the hard parts.
At least that's how it was for me.
> Most teaching until uni is mostly forced upon students.
That is the problem. It should not be forced. People naturally love learning and its a matter of facilitating that. Not going into details here as I have recent comments on this and other threads:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48397182
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48409530