I think there's a major difference between the US and Germany. Here, what you need are good grades to be able to get to university and study. Because if you haven't studied then you will automatically get paid a lot less than those who may not be as skilled but who studied. It's really stupid, yeah. Sometimes people get lucky and find a great job with a nice salary, but that's rare. It's realllly difficult finding a good working place here that also makes you happy. Otherwise you'll get big problems living. In my case, I didn't/couldn't go to university because I was a fool and didn't care about school. Only in the vocational school I attended I did very well because I realized I needed to do that. My mom studied psychology and all kinda stuff and she earns over 2000 euros a month and she still has money probs. A normal worker who only did school for 9 or 10 years gets a job for 1000 euros. The work situation here in Germany is horrible and unbalanced and unfair. It's true that your skills and talents aside from school can get you somewhere, too. But it's not so easy to just follow your dreams and do a job that makes you happy. After all, you want to have enough money to enjoy life sometimes too, right? I'm not trying to undermine you, but these are the facts where I live.
Or maybe I'm just influenced by my parents who have never been satisfied with life.