It may be the most boring solution of all: education. Without someone telling our 16-18 year olds the idea of VALUE in education, they will end up over-spending

It may be the most boring solution of all: education. Without someone telling our 16-18 year olds the idea of VALUE in education, they will end up over-spending. See the story below for my own analysis of myself: When I compare my skill-set and knowledge-set now to 12 years ago, when I was 18, I am remarkably astounded by the huge amount of $$ I casually dropped on an elite education. Even with $20k paid by merit scholarships and research grants, I was dropping $40k yearly for an education that was maybe 10-15% better than what I could've gotten for $5k yearly at a local school. If I took that $35k yearly and invested it into the stock market, I'd probably be about $200k richer today. Is that 10% of a difference really worth $200k to me now? Is a slightly deeper/broader knowledge better than half a home, in my MCOL area? Is it better than a Tesla and a yearly $10k vacation to expand my horizons? I doubt it...