You will also find (if you haven't already) once you are outside of the highly restrictive environment of compulsory education your exposure to people who have limited outlooks or plainly don't use their brains is much more limited.

It was night and day between the last day of high school and the first day of college. You suddenly get access to associate only with who you want to, rather than who you are stuck in a locked building for 8 hours a day with.