<p>Its kinda hard not to complain when all your friends could easily pay the tuition while I have to work 2 jobs and my parents are wokring their butts off just to pay for my tuition. Yea..monzzei is right. life isn't fair.</p>
<p>For every poor family who has a child excel and far surpass them in money and success there is a wealthy family who doesn't use all the advantages handed to them and run with it. Actually I know more wealthy failures.</p>
<p>Life is arbitrary. Sometimes it seems fair. Sometimes not. But I don't presume there is any pre-game plan here.</p>
<p>I truly believe that -- as far as raising children go - time is your more precious commodity, not money. Yes, certain EC's can cost alot of money and so do trips abroad and Broadway plays. But children learn just as much - perhaps more - playing on local rec leagues, playing card and board games with their siblings and parents, doing commuinity theater, raising animals. These activities might not appear as thrilling but they are certainly as "filling" - perhaps more so.</p>
<p>I am not being the poster child for tight budgets and I have certainly enjoyed our economically robust times more than our shoestring graduate study "do we have to buy tuna one more time?" years. However, those years were the formative ones for our children and we spent a great deal of time together (Nannies cost money) back then which is why I think we are such a family close now; and our kids have grown up to be pragmatic, generous, and resourceful - they can shop at Nordstroms or Goodwill or consignment shops with equal ease. They know how to sniff out good, inexpensive films and theater and lectures at nearby colleges and how to travel overseas on a shoestring but find the most amazing sites. They've never known divorce or abandonment or (not counting yelling when mom is overtired) dismissiveness or abuse or major family dysfunction.</p>
<p>Beautifully said, Crash.</p>
<p>OTOH, there are kids with wealthy parents who didn't have the same things growing up. I never had the stay-at-home mom thing; my parents divorced, and my dad works long hours to be successful. Except with the uber-wealthy, inherited-money types, most "wealthy" kids probably have parents who work longer hours or whose jobs involve a lot of stress; it's a trade-off, but you don't hear those kids complaining about how life isn't fair and they wish that Mom made lunches every morning and could chaperone field trips.</p>
<p>"...$83,000 in educational debt."</p>
<p>:::shakes head:::</p>
<p>Kids from less wealthy families have better chances of getting scholarship/financial aid, if they meet standards.</p>
<p>...because life is too short to be an engineer. :)</p>
<p>Jamimom is correct, in america, and everywhere else, it's all about the dough you can shell out. I had to quit competitive gymnastics due to $$ issues, and my friend gets all her SAT books at the library while this very wealthy girl in my class gets private tutoring with a PR master teacher....it costs crazy $$$. something along the range of a 2K package for an SAT II alone. WHen i found out i was like ??!!!!!!!.</p>
<p>From today's Doonesbury:</p>
<p>"Education is the membrane between the classes and it's permeable"</p>
<p>It takes generations to be a rich billionaire, to be a great musician, to be a national politician. There are exceptioanl cases, but that is a statistical fact.
It is much short in terms of time to be a good engineer, even a great scientist. </p>
<p>Immigrats come to America because this country provides the best playground to short this process. That's why vast numbers of first and second generation of immigrants are in the field of engineering. It also expalins why large percentage of students goes to top non-enginnering schools, like Ivies and top LACs.</p>