In my opinion, high school was a joke. It was often taken that way as well. The tests were all reviewed, and most of the time, the questions were given to you before you took a test. In order to pass, all you had to do was study the review questions and you were set. I did not really take high school seriously.
College is a completely different experience.
You actually have to work to get the grades now. My out of school education has prepared me more for the real world than my high school education has. I have learned more about how the real world works out of school than I have in school. There are a lot of things that happen in the real world that you don't learn in school. I know that there are some things that you learn in school that need to be learned, but more of the common sense stuff you find out about out of school.