I didn't have a course in college. I don't recall how I ended up there, but I found the Prodigy mutual fund boards. Since I spent my first two years in community college (cheaper, same basic classes like Eng 101, etc), I had a bit to spare from my meager earnings and bought a couple of mutual funds. I learned a lot on Prodigy. (Our board was actually featured in Kiplinger's magazine, and several of us -including me- were interviewed.) Later on I found TMF.

I was a MF guy until I was hired with a company that had ESPP. I knew enough math to know that was a smokin' deal. It also got me to start learning to evaluate individual stocks.

My retirement accounts are all MFs, a good chunk in indexes. (Note to self...check how those are doing, and maybe reshuffle a bit. I know a few funds aren't indexes.)

As for homes, it depends on what you want. If you look at pure math, I'm not surprised you obtained the result you did. And that is a reasonable approach. But there is something satisfying about your own home. You don't have to wait for a landlord to repair something, you don't have to request permission to paint, you don't have to worry about hanging stuff on the walls, or adding ceiling fans, or whatever. My first home I re-fi'd for a better rate, and then when we built this home we had the opportunity again (in 2008 or 2009) to do it again. In both cases, I was paying less monthly than a lot of people were paying for rents. Though, of course, I was responsible for my own repairs (property taxes and insurance was part of the monthly payment, though it no longer is since we paid the house off two years ago).