Happy (probably belated) birthday! I agree about college. When I first went back in the late 70's it wasn't so bad, but it got really bad after Reagan. That's authority's plan for farming debt slaves now and the quality of the education has gone way down.
The best thing to do now after getting out of high school is travel for at least a year. You don't need fancy hotels. I was actually homeless for about 4 years while running my software business in Nevada (after the financial crash of 2008). There's always a way to get by.