To Go or Not to Go...to Pastry School

I've been thinking about going back to school to study baking and pastry. I've devoted more than a few weekends to trying out new recipes and tweaking old ones. There were some awesome successes and a few complete failures, and while it was frustrating, it didn't make me want to give up baking (well it did, but only for about half an hour). A lot of my free time is spent cooking, baking, jotting down ideas for recipes and flavor combinations, and reading through cookbooks. I don't lack for ideas, what I'm missing is the knowledge to make those ideas into something tangible (and edible). A lot of people are happy to just follow recipes, and that's great, but I want to understand why breads rise and pastry crust doesn't (it's partly because bread flour has more protein than pastry flour) so I can really do whatever I want to instead of always being tethered to recipes. Don't get me wrong, I love recipes, but for me cooking is a form of expression; I'll never be an artist with a paintbrush (believe me, I've tried), but perhaps I can be with a pastry brush.