[doublesprout]

Why not commit yourself to a project instead?

It might be possible to learn work ethic from, say, the military, but college is unstructured enough that you have to push yourself through it, unless your peers are working as hard as you are.

It sounds like you're weighing your intellectual interests in college against your interest in startups. If you're sure you want to do tech, it sounds like you live in a town where talent is sparse enough that once you have a project to pitch around, you could get paid a good amount.