Well yeah, I was the same because at 18 I didn't understand how to think yet. Also because I hadn't experienced those who never learned. At 31 I cherish the education I tried to avoid in my teens.

I went to college at 18. I wasn't ready for it. I floundered for a few years, gaining no valueble life skills nor experiences, then dropped out and moved across the state and starting working and being an adult. Through that process I got to where I could appreciate college, understand what these amounts of money that are being talked about, that I'm spending in my daily life actually are worth so when I went back to college a few years later I could truly appreciate both the opportunities it presented to me, and how my life was being impacted. I've literally trippled my income from just a $20k (before financial aid) two year degree just a few years after graduation.

When your high school is just a conveyer belt into college, you don't appreciate college, it's just another school, and you just have to work through the classes finding the paths of least resistance between where you are now and the final goal of graduation. You don't get to understand what college is about, you don't get to understand how incredibly unique the time you spend in college is compared to the rest of your life, how this is the only time in your life when your focus is studying, learning and to gain as many skills and experiences and friends and contacts as you can.

I kinda forgot where I was going with this but it adds to the discussion to I'm going with it