College is like putting blinders on.
Almost all my friends are successful but have little or no college and I consider them all extremely intelligent. One of the most intelligent men I know didn't have a lick of college.
Of course, I have friends with multiple master degrees and they're very smart as well, but they are also my age or older-common sense came back to them after a while.
And I think that's the 'answer'- in college or soon after, because of those blinders, common sense and outside experiences that add to life take a back seat to the books.