You can learn how to build an LLM from scratch while doing all of those things...

Is going to university really that good of advice nowadays?

Everybody goes to college nowadays and the average white collar has lots of debt and relatively minor financial benefits over a skilled trade worker.

edit: woah, so many people insulted by that. In my bubble and friends, me and another friend are the only people that make very good money compared to non-graduates. Plenty of others opened their shops, went into trades, one learned to tattoo fake eyelashes, one became a (successful) farmer and most make significantly more than the average law/chemist/mathematician/physics/architecture/languages graduates. Sure, the lowest salaries are to be found among the non-graduates too, but I don't see any evidence that graduates make that much more, and that graduating is worth it.

Some answers talking about how "formative college is", but my 25 years old friend with her own shop knows more about real life, business and economy than ivy league MBAs.

So get into debt and spend money is the advice?

Then vote for someone who will make the debts go away?