Very few people, even in the west, are so privileged that they can spend years of time on full time education with no chance of economic gain. If the perverse

Very few people, even in the west, are so privileged that they can spend years of time on full time education with no chance of economic gain. If the perverse incentives of employers demanding significant amounts of ultimately meaningless education, people wouldn't go to universities. They would just go directly into training for a job (which has been the human norm up until a few decades ago).