A lot of the official liberal arts college education goes into understanding the perspectives of others, with a bias to people in power and their power structures. While not an explicit thing they are teaching you, college is teaching you how to understand power structures and the people within them.

If you have a better understanding of power structures, it becomes easier to push said structures to achieve your own goals since you can speak to power structures in their language instead of your own in order to get what you want.

Also, a lot of the clubs and other extra-curricular activities are designed to create small power bases to practice these techniques on.

It is a lot easier to get what you want when you can speak on other people's terms.