I would also add that I am 55. I graduated in 1978. I was a thrown away kid, at 17 I came home from school one afternoon and my shit was sitting in the driveway. I ended up in a shitty apartment in a terrible neighborhood 8 miles from my high school. Outside the district, so no bus, I had to walk to and from my entire senior year (unless I was lucky enough to get a ride). I went right to work from school, and still ended up homeless. My dreams of college were gone, I ended up in a factory union job which was the only thing that got me on my feet again. Still not enough to go to college and live. I HAD NO ONE to help me for over a year until my dad’s parents eventually let me stay with them so I could get a crappy car and some money ahead, but it caused a huge rift in the family that lasted for years.

These assholes and their bootstraps bullshit it just that. Bullshit. NO ONE MAKES IT ALONE. NO ONE. There is simply no such thing as a self made anything. No one exists in a vacuum all alone, that’s not how a capitalist system works. No system does. I would give anything to go back and figure out how to do college or trade school, it’s one of my biggest regrets.