When making a decision about going to college or not, I think it is also important to think about which job path will involve more/less Ruchniyus.
While it’s better to avoid college, sometimes the jobs that don’t involve college can be worse Ruchniyus-wise than those that do require college.
For example, being a special education teacher or a speech therapist require college and being a secretary or a computer programmer do not, but once they start working, the special ed teacher and the speech therapist are more likely to be in a more Ruchniyus environment.