Reply to Sister's husband has $0 in college fund for my nephews

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I'm increasingly convinced that OP is a troll. No one could be this clueless about how the "other half" (in this case, the other 99%) lives, especially with close family members who never went to college.[/quote]

I grew up in a working poor/class ethos with my sister. I went one way, she went another. Nobody is demonizing the working class, or as someone else put it "using it as a slur." But ignorant people don't know what they don't know. Uneducated adults being suspicious or intimidated that their children will surpass them is a very real phenomenon. On a recent Malcolm Gladwell podcast they talk about a poor boy named Carlos whose druggy felon mom forbid him from attending Choate boarding school on full scholarship.

We're talking about 38-y.o. adults here that probably have the education of a suburban 6th grader. They've never stepped foot on a university campus before. Outside of maybe a couple colleagues (that don't associate with them outside of work) or distant "friends" on facebook, they don't know any college educated professionals. Most don't REALLY grasp just how narrow the scope is of a working poor/class adult and how this ethos stunts children. It's called cyclical poverty for a reason.[/quote]

I grasp it very well. Which is why, if I had the money and they had the interest, I would help my nephews broaden the scope of their lives, however "small" that broadening might be. If I had the money, I would help them go to community college, if that was all they were ready for at age 18. Or if they were able to get into a four year college, I would help with that, even if the school had a grad rate of 50%, because I would know that getting out of their house and out into a somewhat more intellectual environment could only have a positive impact.

What I would not do is decide that the inability to get into a top college at 18 meant that they were washed up and destined to be deadbeats.

YMMV.[/quote]

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