That’s kind of my point. For a lot of people, college has nothing to do with getting “exposed to the world” or “the knowledge and wisdom of others”.
As @Mighty_Mouse noted, that article is very dated. Note that article is 10 years old and it’s a Japan fluff piece from a Japan fluff site and simply reflects the standard, “everyone knows this” without any nuances.
A photo search shows that the pictures come, without credit, from a blog
which has this notice.
Fluff sites that steal pictures from blogs aren’t particularly trustworthy.
Thank you for this wonderful detective work! 
Those who can, do.
Those who can’t, don’t.
I went to a semi-fancy college (Wesleyan) and became a carpenter because I wanted to ski, I liked working outdoors, and it was way more mentally stimulating than working in an office (for me). It’s also totally broken down my body. My 85 YO Dad is still working because he loves his job (architect), and can’t figure out why I’m not a PM on some crazy project down at the Yellowstone Club. A) I don’t need the money B) I don’t need 55 hour weeks C) I don’t need to be dealing with those clients. Making things with your hands is cool. Management is not cool, or fun. Skied 65 days this year, too.
I grew up in a family that was, at best, lower middle class. My mother was a HS dropout and my father may have finished HS (it wasn’t clear). Nonetheless, in a Jewish family the only acceptable career was to be a doctor or lawyer. I definitely knew I didn’t want to be a lawyer and was interested in science, so I pretended, not really believing it, that I wanted to be a doctor. So when I studied math instead, it was a great disappointment to them. A friend of my father’s imagined I would spend my days adding long columns of figures. Even accountants didn’t do that by then. I guess they were a little proud when I got a PhD; I’m not sure.
Then my brother came along. He was bright, but barely finished HS. He joined Air Force and when he came out with the GI bill, he decided that maybe college was a good idea. He finished and went into computing. By that time my parents were just happy he had a profession.
Then came my sister. She just had no interest in academics and got married at 19. Greatly disappointing my parents. Some day I may tell the story of her wedding (interrupted by a trip to a hospital for a D&C for a spontaneous miscarriage).
But they got used to it.
And the ones who go there to party usually (emphasize USUALLY) don’t last very long.
People have their own weird ideas of what “achievement” looks like. For some reason, my younger brother was considered the “successful” one in my family because he’s worked his entire career at the same Fortune 500 company. Meanwhile, I’ve worked a string of lucrative jobs for mostly tech companies and management consultancies in Manhattan. But my parents don’t really understand what my job is or what I do so they just think I have an unstable career hopping from job to job.
Even at my mom’s funeral, one of her friends was like “your mom confided in me that she was always worried about one of her sons, but she never told me which one”. I could tell she was strongly implying that it was me.
My response was “Do you think she was worried about the son who owns a waterfront condo overlooking Manhattan or the one who lives in Buttfuckville, OH selling toothpaste?”
Personally, I don’t think most corporate jobs as a major “achievement” unless you are like the CEO or founding a startup or something. maybe if you do something that’s actually useful, like construct a suspension bridge or build a hospital.
I don’t think that’s necessarily true in my experience. My college was a big party school and I certainly knew a number of people who partied their way out. But most seemed to manage their studies and going to the bars and fraternity parties on the weekends.
I would say there was also a not insignificant number of students whose parents were connected enough to simply just make “achievement” happen. I’m involved in a Wall Street alumni group with my college and listening to some of these guys speak, they really do sound like massive entitled douche bags whose Daddy set them up with their golf buddy who runs a hedge fund.
Are you my brother???
I would certainly consider my old co-worker’s son, who has Down syndrome and works as a grocery bagger, to be pretty darned successful in his own right.