In my town, you do all that in high school. By the time you start uni, you either have peers from school or peers from outside school who you found because there were no other weird people in your school. There's nothing special going on at uni and whatever there is is perfectly accessible to everyone else.

I'd say the connections in my extended social network are 5% through high school, 1% through uni, 10% through doing random stuff and the rest through friends. That network provides me with a more or less steady supply of jobs, girlfriends, cool dudes and assorted adventures. And, it's part of the real, permanent world and not some expensive fantasy camp that you have to leave behind when the vacation's over.

Maybe things are different here, but if it works for us, it can work for anyone, and economics may soon force the matter.

If people want to hook up, get high and party, they'll make it happen wherever they are and whatever they're doing, so they might as well be doing something useful.