[KMag]

If you're poor, and especially if you're poor and have the "wrong" skin color, people don't expect you to get a college degree, so people don't push you to succeed. It was always an unspoken assumption that I would graduate from college, and people around me set up my life that way.

Yes, the homicide rate is high, but I find the low college graduation rate more disturbing.

On a side note: shot, stabbed, or strangled doesn't make much difference to the homicide victim or their loved ones. Hopefully you'd have the same reaction if two of them were stabbed to death.

[randomdata]

> I find the low college graduation rate more disturbing.

I was thinking it is rather high, all things considered. The statistical norm would expect only about 25 people to graduate out of that group. It would be interesting to compare against people in similar situations, but without the crack influence. I expect that the attainment rate will be similar.

[newnewnew]

Is your hypothesis that people with an IQ of 79 could largely obtain meaningful college degrees if only given the proper encouragement?

[flexie]

Any kind of murder is terrible. 2/110 is an extremely high murder rate. I realise the sample is not representative, but still...

[notdrunkatall]

>people don't expect you to get a college degree, so people don't push you to succeed.

Is 'people' a euphemism for 'parents?'

[randomdata]

I'm not the previous poster, and my experience is the exact opposite, but I don't think so. My parents gave me the least amount of pressure to go to college of anyone. Teachers, peers, and other people of the community were much more adamant about it. I even remember a few people lecturing my parents, not even me directly, over the importance of me going to college.

Not all communities, especially those on the poorer side, are like that at all. Education is even demonized in some locations. Parents are just a small part of the social attitudes towards such ventures.

[JabavuAdams]

I doubt it. Friends are very influential. I'm not sure about this, but I assume everyone in my high-school class went on to some kind of post-secondary education within the next few years. I would have felt very strange to not go to university. Everyone's doing it, y'know?