[moonchrome]

Yes - I've seen studies that show things like "quality education" don't really hold up under close inspection (for eg. when you control for student performance before college difference between elite colleges and standard ones disappears).

I would be interested how research defines this "high quality social/cultural environments" and how it controls for factors such as genetics, family cultural and financial background, etc. Separated twin studies would probably be ideal (but I'm not an expert in the field).

[d2xdy2]

I agree; I'd like to see some long-term information on this.