[nbouscal]

You're missing a lot of auxiliary factors when you just look at college, let alone a specific college program. The educational advantage rich kids get starts at birth. A huge amount of it simply comes from having parents that make you do homework, etc. You say that you can learn world-class STEM without going to MIT/Stanford, but you're presuming a hell of a lot of prerequisites there that the majority of poor people do not have. You say that most people aren't interested or talented, but talent doesn't have a damn thing to do with it and the reason they aren't interested is because nobody has ever helped them get to the point where it's interesting. The popular perception of math, for example, is about as distant from actual mathematics as you can possibly get. That is not the kid's fault, it's the fault of the education system and society at large.

[ahomescu1]

> A huge amount of it simply comes from having parents that make you do homework, etc.

That's not something exclusive to rich people. I got a lot of encouragement as a kid from my parents to learn stuff and read books, without them being rich (grew up in Romania). Money isn't the big factor in your argument, quality parenting is (which I agree is important).

[zanny]

I'd say hes giving a lesser example. Private tutors, the ability to acquire any scientific equipment you want, not having to worry about what your next meal is, not having to get a job at 14 to make ends meet in the family hurting your studies, private schools that do career tracks from 8 with career tracks per student rather than factory public school education, and like I said, more importantly than anything, the connections you get by being in the rich kids club from birth.

You get a stacked hand economically, culturally, and socially. We often focus on the economic part, but I think it is the other two that contribute way more to the status quo being limited upward movement from poorer classes to the wealthy / elite / prosperous.

[ahomescu1]

Still sticking to STEM, here are my thoughts on each of your points:

> Private tutors

Not sure about these, don't know much about them.

> the ability to acquire any scientific equipment you want

If you're studying math/CS, how much of these do you need? Maybe for Physics or Chemistry, but even then?... When I was a kid, my parents bought me a cheapo Electronics kit and I learned a lot about circuits from that and a couple of books.

> not having to worry about what your next meal is, not having to get a job at 14 to make ends meet in the family hurting your studies

I don't know that many Romanian kids with that problem, so I expect it's even less common in the western world (disclaimer: I currently live in the US). However, I do see a lot of kids skipping school, acting cool and picking on nerds (and this is a global problem IMHO, not limited to the US or Eastern Europe). That's not poverty, that's just bad attitude.

> private schools that do career tracks from 8 with career tracks per student rather than factory public school education

Not sure about these either, never had contact with private schools.

> more importantly than anything, the connections you get by being in the rich kids club from birth

I think these matter a lot more in the legal and financial worlds. In tech, with all the startup money being thrown around, it's not that hard to get funding for an idea.

> You get a stacked hand economically, culturally, and socially. We often focus on the economic part, but I think it is the other two that contribute way more to the status quo being limited upward movement from poorer classes to the wealthy / elite / prosperous.

I personally know a few people from poor families who became tech millionaires in a decade or less, by starting their own company or working pre-IPO at a startup. While these are only anecdotes, they show it's not impossible to become rich. You do have to pick a high-growth field.

I think there's still a lot of mobility in fields where personal contribution and talent still matter, like technology, science and art (for example, you can still be poor and later become a millionaire, see Justin Bieber and Psy for recent examples). It's much harder to do this in finance, law and politics; but then again, hasn't it always been so?