That's a fair point, and it gets into intrinsic vs extrinsic motivation. Problem is that nearly all students are conditioned to care about external motivators (GPA, parental expectations, etc..) instead of "the joy of learning".
What you value personally does not have as much impact on your life as the things people will value about you. In corporate, people value you for the amount of money you can make them.
On the contrary, I think what you value has the greatest impact on your life, it can be the difference between being happy or completely miserable. Some people spend their lives valuing the wrong things and being unhappy, so much so that it’s a common trope in books and movies.