Part of the problem is academics sticking to the rote lecture-lab model of teaching mathematics, which sucks and has for centuries.

Learning science has developed some alternatives, including more increments between here are the expression transfigurations you need to memorize and here are some homework problems that require you to apply those formulas at mastery and take some intuitive leaps in the meantime.

I'm a failed Computer Science major, and math is, as I've experienced it typically taught by professors who love and breathe mathematics, and struggle to imagine how it can be so unclear for the rest of us. While I have great respect for math nerds, they are trying to show their work for the rest of us, when it happened too fast in their own heads to cleanly break it down into steps.

So yeah, some day when education isn't as politicized and gets some funding, we'll get easier math. But not today.