Totally agree - but I still think some amount of sacrifice is necessary at the beginning, when you finish your education and start with 0 (if you're lucky, some have student loans).
I am at this very point at the moment (finishing master thesis), and my parents are not wealthy - I've been earning my own money since 17. Thinking that you start with 0 is IMHO a fallacy (if you are staying within the same industry). If you are no antisocial you have made at least 1-2 (or better: 10-20) good friends at college/school with whom you can team up, or build your network. If you haven't, reach out to your ex project group partners.
Many ex-students think that they don't deserve high wages yet - "I have to learn X,Y,Z,... until I can demand X$". Thing is that we never stop learning, and you HAVE to charge money for learning. Projects are by definition a nonrecurring enterprise (else you could fully automate the outcome), so there will always be things to learn to finish it.
If you think that your skills are not worth a lot of money, you will not even try and demand it - that makes it exactly a zero chance of earning a lot. For many people the only thing that separates them from earning much is their self-confidence (or confidence in their skills) - or choice of wrong market/industry (what are my talents?), but that's a different post.
a lot of people view the project work that they do in college as "sacrifice". but really? if you have a challenging curriculum, those projects become successes (perhaps your first successes) that you build on professionally.
your friends new coworkers ask "wow, this new kernel hacker came out of nowhere!" but you say "well if you had watched them through college, it was just success building on success ..."
As far as I can tell, he's not saying that one should never sacrifice... just that if you do, try to align the situation so there is a payoff for YOU down the line. Education can be one of those things.
I personally don't think that education is a self-sacrifice activity... or if it is, you're studying the wrong things. University is a gigantic opportunity to make vast numbers of valuable connections, learn lots of interesting things, develop as a human being, and even gain some valuable credentials that will make earning money easier.
Of course, it's a bit overpriced in America at the moment, but that doesn't mean that education in general is a bad deal. On the contrary.
I went to UBC (British Columbia, Canada) and the tuition cost as of today is $400+ per course. If a student enrols to 12 courses/year that comes down to $4800/year or $19.2k/4-years. Less than $5k/year is probably not too bad for a mid-tier University (e.g.: not MIT level).
Of course "not to bad" is because I compared it with our 2 weeks Caribbean escapade last year where we spent probably between $4k to $5k in total for 2 people. Or a ticket price, round-trip, flying to Indonesia that cost around $1.5k+/person during "shoulder season".
As a side note: Microsoft offers interns about $5k/month for 3-months (or 4-months, depending on your program). If interns can live frugally in Seattle/Redmond (corporate housing with roommate), they probably can afford to pay 1-2 years worth of education from one internship period.
UC must be one of the expensive schools. The average isn't too bad:
"In 2011-12, public four-year colleges charge, on average, $8,244 in tuition and fees for in-state students. The average surcharge for full-time out-of-state students at these institutions is $12,526."
That average includes some a large number of schools that many high-achievers wouldn't consider as they won't meet many other high achievers there, nor will they meet many high achieving faculty.
If an American is unable to get merit scholarships at top schools, they're likely looking at $100-200k in tuition and expenses for a BS.
Unless you have wealthy parents that is.