Me first, indeed. That's what I did; it works.
That's also a completely different argument from the one I was addressing. It sounds like your version is that 18 to 22-year-olds are too dangerous to be unleashed on society (the person getting the "operation" in your analogy), so we need to send them to school to keep them out of trouble.
But I don't understand why school is a better alternative than the job market.