Personally I really like and follow the advice given by film maker Werner Herzog (echoed also by many other creative greats ), “live life wide”, do whatever you need to sustain yourself while you follow your dreams and passions, take on a range of jobs, work with all sorts of people from many walks of life. In essence when we create for others we must understand them or else we cannot speak to them through our art, and if we do not communicate well with our audience there is little they will reward us with their money and buy our product.
Robert Rodriquez a film maker I admire a great deal, raised money by volunteering himself for medical research, that allowed him to make “El Mariachi”.
The essence of is do what you need to do, and do it your way, there is no one size fits all. If you need to go to university raise the money and go, if you need to sleep on the streets and watch people, do just that.