[shantly]

I'm not even that smart—tested into gifted programs by the skin of my teeth—and I'm just about certain I could have completed a 2-year degree in some mid-difficulty subject area by no later than 18—maybe as young as 16—if I'd found a way to get my GED over a Summer or something else that'd mark me as "college ready", applied, and been accepted to a community college.

I didn't try to do it because I didn't understand the relative difficulty of high school and (your average non-elite) college, at the time, though. High school eats so much time that college ended up feeling much easier, and the course work for subject areas outside the harder end of STEM wasn't a bit tougher than that of high school (the dividing line is essentially "is any of the math required more difficult than Calc 1?"). I wasn't expecting the first couple years of a 4-year degree to often fail to go past material we'd covered in 8th grade (looking at you, Psych. 101 requirement). I just expected it to be much harder than it actually was, since I gathered that's how it's supposed to be.