> aren't I better off spending that time learning more SWE skills and building projects I care about, and choosing to take the 87%?

Yes you are, but be honest, are you actually spending that time learning more SWE skills and building projects? Or are you spending it socializing and relaxing? While I do think school is a low leverage activity in helping you become successful in tech, the reality is that most of the activities you would do on your own are even lower leverage.

So unless you have a top internship, are spending the time doing lots of leetcode, taking courses on relevant technologies or are contributing to open source with that free time you are probably better off focusing on school and squeezing all the learning you can get. After all, you are paying hundreads of thousands of dollars for that education.

99% of students who don't focus on school and *just get by* are spending their freetime playing video games or socializing. They are avoiding doing hard things which is ironically the number one skill as an SWE.

1% of students ignore their grades and get multiple fall, spring and summer internships or just speedrun their classes and graduate early. They then graduate college as a hyper qualified software engineer with a low GPA.

You need to be honest with yourself about who you are. If you are spending all your free time playing video games and socializing you are probably in the 99%. I personally am definitely in the 99% and had to focus on my grades throughout college. I also felt like it was really hard and demoralizing and it felt like I was doing almost 0 relevant SWE work. But it taught me how to do hard things, and I got really good at getting good grades. By my junior and senior years I was able to work a part time internship, launch many side projects, get a FAANG internship while still maintaining my 4.0. \
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Many of my friends who "didn't focus on school" had to cheat their way through tech interviews and didn't have the willpower to grind leetcode or work hard at their SWE internships / jobs once they got them. 