I believe there are two reasons behind that change, for be personally.
1. I went to public school and a majority of the history classes I remember were busy work / the way it was being taught.
2. I'm older and more mature.
I was generally a terrible college student...in general.
I was capable, but I wasn't focused, I just wasn't ready, so I dropped out and managed to wiggle my way into the tech world due to the dot com days.
20 years later I took a coding camp and found myself focused and absolutely enthralled that someone was going to teach me a thing. There were some other older / formerly poor students turned enthusiastic students too.
I wish I could go back to college as I think I'd get so much more out of it now compared to the past.