If I had left school two years earlier...

That is correct. School beyond high school, doesn't actually teach us anything, particularly if that school is university. At least high school attempts to teach us how to socialize if nothing else.

The only place where learning occurs beyond high school is in a Trade School or in a college of applied technology. University is stupidly expensive and teaches absolutely nothing to it's students, nor are it's students qualified to do anything specific upon graduation from a Masters Program or even from a Doctorate.

About the only thing one is qualified to do with a PhD is become a University Professor which only pays about $160,000 per year the last time I looked which wasn't recently.

Our tax dollars don't pay a University Professor's salary, the tuition fees pay the Professor's salary which the parents of those students pay to the university with after-tax dollars saved for 20 years from the time their kid was born.

I know, my parents didn't save for 20 years anticipating a Doctorate hanging on my bedroom wall either.