While all your friends from high school are freshman in college, handing in more homework and taking more tests, you will be learning a technical skill needed in both the military and civilian sectors.  Even if you enlist for a combat arms role, you will still be learning to use and apply a wide range of technologies.

After three years, if you decide to return to civilian life, your friends will only then be entering their senior year in college.   True, they may be learning, in the technical definition of the term, but go check out the course syllabus at any four-year university or college.  The first two years are devoted to general education requirements.

Universities and colleges require general education requirements of all students because high schools have failed in that department.  Your friends have, in truth, only received one year of education which was not a repetition of lessons they should have learned in high school.

Civilians love doing things over and over.  The Armed Forces do not.

In the United States Army, you will be taught to operate and maintain technologies that your friends have only heard of in video games.  And get this, the Army doesn’t charge for books.

After three years of Active Duty, you will return to civilian life being capable of learning anything on your own, without the need for a teacher at the head of the class.  Employers love veterans of the Armed Forces for this reason.