I think this every day. I even bailed on a job to do a foundation degree in medicine but finances and circumstances killed that dead.
However its probably better if someone takes a pile of money from society through a business and dedicates all profit to research. Look at Gates for example. If you are qualified in the subject you're likely to be a health service or corporate drug peddler at best. If you can generate clear revenue you can hire these people and focus on something.
I want to study the use of AI in determining genetic factors to disease and the neuro-degenerative ailments that the worlds increasingly older populations are facing "but finances and circumstances killed that dead".
It's really frustrating and demoralizing that education in particular is so badly structured (in my experience). For instance: while I was getting kicked off my Cog-Sci Masters course for owing £300 a colleague was receiving a fully funded PhD position to study _Harry Potter Fan Fiction Porn_. That was a kick in the teeth.
You just got to keep at it I guess, don't let the knocks stop you realising your potential and refine your plans to the point where they are laser sharp. I think it's this kind of attitude that separates entrepreneurs from the crowd.
That just sucks. Based on your usage of £ I assume you are in the UK (I am too).
Education here is a broken pile of crap. Politics and ridiculous rules and structure galore.
For example: I did electrical engineering and nearly got kicked off my course for daring to drop an email politely asking a user telnetted into the box I was working on, to stop trying to brute force su to root on my Sun workstation which was dumping logs onto the frame buffer console and screwing up my Cadence session. They were trying to crack root and I complained and ended up with a disciplinary for breaking the communication AUP.
The fucked up bit: The attacker actually complained that I'd caught him to his tutor who kicked off the whole disciplinary process against me.
So I learned how political it is and yes you're right there were people studying crap like that at PhD level in my department. Some guy was working on electrically stimulated sex aids on my tuition fees...
I once heard one of the top generals talking on the radio about the state of the MoD and he was saying that the basic career path was to suck up a decade or two of dirt before finding a desk job so obscure you can hide away for the next three or four decades and earn a pretty pension. I've always found it intriguing how well this seems to parallel academia.
Where are you based?
Get in touch if you fancy chatting some time (email in profile), I find it helps to vent spleen sometimes ;)
However its probably better if someone takes a pile of money from society through a business and dedicates all profit to research. Look at Gates for example. If you are qualified in the subject you're likely to be a health service or corporate drug peddler at best. If you can generate clear revenue you can hire these people and focus on something.