>I think that's part of the reason so many students are drawn towards web development; where it costs next to nothing to set up a web dev workstation and anyone can throw together a professional looking site.

You are absolutely right. I am currently in high school, and I enjoy doing lower-level stuff like game engines, compilers, OSes and hardware.

I am currently thinking of dropping out of school, but it will probably force me to do freelancing and web dev.

It's almost impossible to get a job in any of the areas I am interested without a University degree.

Back in the early days of PCs, I could easily make a hardware startup and earn a decent living, or maybe even get rich. But now it's virtually impossible to do so.

It costs billions of dollars to setup a semiconductor fab and the field is encumbered in patents and politics. Majority of games studios also have budgets with about the same number of digits.