There was a time I was thinking in similar vibes, but came to realization this is actually oversimplification.

1. if there are jobs offering high pay, and there are people who get them- these jobs are not overpaid, clearly some people want to pay high and there are other people who deliver (and of course there are other who fake it, but it's not a norm)

2. not all people are equal, and not all jobs are equal, and just because 'it feels unfair' does not mean it is unfair. Sure, there are different levels of programmers but I personally have seen people who deserve every penny of their pay, because they produce stuff 99.99% people won't be able to produce no matter how hard they want to be in that league

3. Education is investment people make because they see it opens some doors that are otherwise closed- looking at job descriptions in my area, most well paid jobs require some form of paper from applicants- it doesn't matter if it's good or bad, it's state of reality (and sure, there are other jobs where paper is not needed, my point is that with the paper more doors are opened)

4. in case of original poster, the problem might be different- partially because of the target audience and partially because of local reality. In early stage of developed countries nepothism is a huge problem, so I sympathetise with the poster as I know this first hand. I dare to say, having college degree puts him in much better situation than most of the population and the game is to be patient.