Some of the things you point out are largely true, in your 20's, if your only concerns are "getting a job" and making money. However, a good liberal arts degree

Some of the things you point out are largely true, in your 20's, if your only concerns are "getting a job" and making money. However, a good liberal arts degree confers a number of benefits in many areas of knowledge, and provides a foundation of education and articulateness that is quite helpful throughout one's lifetime. There are, of course, many bad liberal arts programs that confer little of these benefits. I have a couple of friends who forwent college for similar reasons, and they did make more money early on. However, as time passes, they find that there is a pay and advancement ceiling that is lower for them than for their higher educated coworkers. They are also more fearful of losing the income they have painstakingly built up, are more rooted in their company, generally have not saved and don't have a lot of equity (especially with the current housing market), and don't use their monetary head start to now get the education that would help them. They then complain to me that they've hit the pay ceiling and are watching their (always less qualified) over-educated co-workers advance and make more money for doing less. I am sympathetic but skeptical. There is also a smugness in posts like these that rub people like me the wrong way. It is easy when things are going well for you to look around and say everyone else is doing something wrong. I encourage you to look deeper.