Ask HN: Please help a Swede. Education, the tech world or both?

Ok, so I read articles on HN every day, and I really enjoy them. I have encountered a problem though, what people "away from keyboard" tell me isn't the same as what the HN articles tell me. In 1½ years I will be done with the educational instance I'm stuck in at the moment[1]. I spent a year in the USA (Santa Cruz, CA) so I'm a year behind academically (I'm currently 18). Anyway, when I'm out of the "Gymnasium" (see [1]) I will have to make a choice. Do I start working within tech or do I get an education? In Sweden education is heavily subsidized so a lot of people are very well-educated on paper. Anyway, it wouldn't cost too much to get an education for me, except my best years. But at the same time, I'm not sure that education is necessarily the best thing for me, since I do want to live what Arrington refers to as "the pirate life". But at the same time, a lot of people who seem to be arguing that you shouldn't waste time at uni often hold degrees themselves and have something to fall back on. I want to create new things and I don't want to follow "the path", but at the same time I need to know that my life won't be shit in 10 years because I decided to live the pirate life.

I know that most of you live in the USA where college is really expensive, and yeah, education is expensive everywhere, but I will not be the one paying for it since it is subsidized.

Anyway, do I have to "follow the path" and not rock the boat to have a decent life in 10 years or will the pirate life (provided I'm good at what I do) be enough of a merit?

Also, since I am not american I can't just move to the valley (now or in the future), so since I'm a swede, the situation really is another one than if I had been american.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gymnasium_%28school%29#North_European_countries