Hasbeen yes very true, you know my road working days left me with a poor view of engineers
In truth it was not the reason they failed, their job was man management , they had undoubted skills in their area
But little training in their real job
One however stood out as top draw in both areas
He backed me in starting a work place class, for those who could not read or write,
And kept the real nature of the whole thing from their workmates, a very important thing
Some who never learned to read or right are great workers extra skilled and often hide the truth with shear brilliance for decades

//Are straight A students even as smart as they think they are to begin with?//

Probably not.

But I reckon it's pretty safe to say that they are smarter than you think you are, due to the Dunning-Kruger effect:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect

//How many really financial successful people actually did well in school?//

Financial success isn't a good metric for intelligence. By that logic, Paul Erdos was an idiot and Bill Gates is smarter than Paul Dirac was.

//The amount of hours university students are forced to put in every weak just makes me cringe.//

Yeah, they used to make me cringe as well. 30-ish isn't that many, and then you look at the people who don't have laboratory requirements and they do about half as much face-to-face as the science students, and no lab reports. Somehow it just never seemed fair. Chain the people studying Mickey-Mouse crap like business and commerce and arts to their desks for 8 hours a day, and let's see how popular those courses are then...

//Is Uni the be all and end all?//

No.

Financial success isn't a good metric for intelligence.
Toni Lavis,
So true ! Selfishness, egotism, greed & luck are most definitely not in the cache of intelligence.
Actually, I've been wondering all my life if it was possible for an honest, decent person to become rich.

//Actually, I've been wondering all my life if it was possible for an honest, decent person to become rich.//

I hope so. Although it should be noted that honesty and decency are not necessarily correlated with intelligence. A person can be bright and still be a massive dick.

What is rich? Is it only money, or is it having a fantastic life.

I have had a lucky knack of moving into an area I want to live, & buying some property just before the area became popular, & my property value had a lucky increase in value. It has made me reasonably comfortable. Well I was before I started helping the kids.

However I am much richer than most in life experience.

I have flown off aircraft carriers, & even managed to land on them.

I have raced cars successfully, up to & including Formula 1.

I have sailed 53,000 nautical miles around the Pacific islands in my yacht.

I have breed, trained & ridden show jumpers & eventers, at a very moderate, but still satisfying level.

I would much rather have had these experiences than be a multi millionaire, but been too busy making money to have the time to do such things.

I do know only one rich man I can admire. He had incredible enthusiasm for his business, & making it successful. The fact that he was making a lot of money was simply a by product. He is almost as lucky as me

I can relate to the thoughts expressed here.

I have known a few that struggled frustratingly with reading. Myself I've always loved reading - and encourage all listeners to a love of reading.

Educated by life and at university.

"It seems the flower is more important than the fruit in the contemporary world" (Musashi). Sometimes I do think as Hasbeen of "being there rather than just reading about it".

Education overrated in todays society? Well it depends on the education, the person, the purpose, the society... General skills and knowledge are important in Australian society- specialist skills are relevant in the correct context- but you can always do what you value in your own time and at your own expense.