He wrote eloquently about one of his failures in grad school iirc because he simply didn’t work enough nor seriously enough. Even though he is a genius there is quite a lot of work required.
Not far outside is a very lax definition. A 500K Mortgage (affordable with aforementioned salaries) gets you a 2 bedroom in good neighborhoods in Paris, 3 in lesser ones. Sure, if you're ready to go 20 km away you can get a rather nice house at that price (say 100-150m2 with a garden of variable size), but at the cost of commuting 30min-1hr everyday.
Anyways, I wouldn't consider someone establishing outside of an european city (esp when working there) "high middle class". If you can't afford central housing of your choice, you dont qualify.
There's no other way in my opinion too. This is super stressful to me. I started working a few years ago, working my ass off with a full time job and part time one at night and I wonder if it's going to be of any worth someday or if I'm just working against my own later benefits by putting myself in the "too wealthy compared to my age class future average" fringe.
Poor people get scholarships, get dismissed from university cost even.
And aside from wealth, everyone can repeatedly enroll in classes for many years (although if you don't pass you have to payback what was given to you) and waste everyone's ressources for useless, unfinished degrees (hello first year of sociology or other bullshit).