Yup, agreed. I figure most parents don't even have the $50k lying around to give their new HS graduate (they'd get it for college through loans and grants). Good luck getting a small business loan as an 18-year-old with no business experience. Savings vehicles for education like a 529 plan certainly won't let you take that money out to start a business.

Life works this way because life works this way. Social structures exist to reinforce the status quo, and these are only changed incrementally, over a long period of time. Potential college-goers who want to jump the queue and do something radical right now, even if it's a much better thing, are going to have a hard time unless they have well-off parents who are willing to take a shot on them.