Post New

The Macro Economy is an emergent property -- the aggregation of producers and consumers adds up to more than the sum of the individuals in the same way that an ocean is more than individual water molecules. But the quality of individuals certainly feeds into the aggregate. If the quality of individuals gradually shifts from supportive to non-supportive the aggregate will gradually shift and may reach a tipping point.

The U.S. Census Bureau's working paper, "Changes in Milestones of Adulthood," reports that only 17% of young adults (ages 25-34) had reached all five markers of adulthood in 2023. This is a significant decrease from the 26% who had reached them in 2005. These markers are: Completing their education, being employed or actively seeking work, living away from their parents, marrying and living with a child (becoming a parent or step-parent). I found this shocking since the foundation of a thriving society depends on people becoming educated, working and forming families.

https://www.census.gov/library/working-papers/2025...

The detailed analysis shows that young adults are focusing more on economic security above prioritizing family formation. One out of five young men (20%) in this age group live with their parents. One out of nine (11%) is not in the labor force (working or seeking work). I focus on men because women could be out of the labor force due to taking care of children. Like most other developed countries our population growth is below replacement. We rely on immigrants to provide growing labor needs. Our own population is becoming less capable of providing a reliable workforce.

David Brooks, a New York Times columnist, just wrote a perceptive editorial.

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/09/05/opinion/liberal...


Why I Am Not a Liberal
Sept. 5, 2025

....
As a society, we are pretty good at transferring money to the poor, but we’re not very good at nurturing the human capital they would need to get out of poverty. As a result, we do an OK job supporting people who are in long-term poverty but a poor job of helping them lift out of poverty. ...

Rising out of poverty requires the nonmaterial qualities we now call human capital, such as skills, diligence, honesty, good health and reliability....

Nonmaterial forces — culture, moral norms, traditions, religious ideals, personal responsibility and community cohesion, manners and morals are more important than laws. You should have limited expectations about politics because not everything can be solved with a policy. ...

Today most of our problems are moral, relational and spiritual more than they are economic. There is the crisis of disconnection, the collapse of social trust, the loss of faith in institutions, the destruction of moral norms in the White House, the rise of amoral gangsterism around the world...

Progressives are quick to talk about money but slow to talk about the values side of the equation. That’s in part for the best of reasons. They don’t want to blame the victims or contribute to the canard that people are poor because they are lazy....[end quote]

I think this last sentence is being politically correct to avoid getting canceled by liberals.

I am quite willing to say that people are poor because they are lazy, stupid or lacking the skills needed to work in a modern society because their culture doesn't promote personal virtues needed by workers. I'm quite willing to say that our society has a problematic outlook because many children are skipping school. The RAND Corporation estimated that approximately 22% of K-12 students were chronically absent in the 2024-2025 school year.

Liberals and progressives want to solve social issues with transfer payments. I agree that a wealthy society shouldn't allow people to starve or suffer without essential medical care but several studies show that additional money above the amount needed to provide the basics will not lift people out of poverty if they lack social skills.

On the other hand, conservatives are working hard to strip even the basics from the poor and working class, such as SNAP and Medicaid. The objective of conservatives seems to be to shunt even more wealth toward the wealthiest while shredding the safety net.

I'm a centrist. I believe that the virtues and qualities which were the foundation of American success should be promoted. Unfortunately, liberals would scream blue murder if schools went back to teaching social virtues. And conservatives would instantly snap into the Christian evangelical mode.
Wendy

I think we'd all agree with the UK Labour Party's platform to have factories and better-paying jobs.

The Conservative policies have been doing the opposite.

I agree with most of what Wendy said. She did, however, post a sentence which may be caused by human nature:

As a society, we are pretty good at transferring money to the poor, but we’re not very good at nurturing the human capital they would need to get out of poverty. As a result, we do an OK job supporting people who are in long-term poverty but a poor job of helping them lift out of poverty. ...
_____________________________________________________________

Human nature is, indeed, hard-wired into most of us. Every culture in the world sings, every one dances, exhibits ancestor worship in one form or another, believes in spirits, exhibits the ability to have "faith" (something which can neither be proven or disproven, but which can affect people strongly enough to both take lives as well as give up their own - can be nearly anything which ends with the letters "ism" if properly spun by those adept at manipulating human nature), parental/familial protective feelings and frequently that there is a race of "little people" who stay just out of sight but who can act mischievously, etc.

In that context, while many people think squirrels are cute, many think rats are terrible - so, other than one has a bushy tail, what make one elicit the opposite emotions than the other? Overly simplistically, we compete with rats over the same food and living space and we don't with squirrels.

While due to societal pressures – whether to “do what is right” for our fellow countrypeople or out of fear of destructive rioting if we don’t, there is currently an implied social contract to keep our poor from starving to death or getting riled up enough to set our cities on fire and loot from businesses.

For the wealthy, getting tax breaks and certificates for “doing good” boosts their ego. That said, giving them free education – especially by putting the “disadvantaged” into schools, but no longer having space for the spawn of the wealthy, by favoring their start-up businesses in ways that allows them to compete with established firms, encouraging them, once they have succeeded to move into neighborhoods alongside of long-term denizens goes a long way towards, from a human nature based emotional standpoint turning those nearly domesticated squirrels into rats.

Look, I am more aware than many that a union electrician can earn six-figures a year (in addition to about the same in benefits) without a college education. There ARE jobs for those whose final education is an apprentice program which puts them into the middle class. Similarly, the military prepares some for the ability to gain good employment upon leaving the service (airline pilot comes to mind). That said, for a number of reasons, which in the quest for brevity, I won’t go into here, a “college education” (or higher) is the key to getting your resume looked at and a “professional degree” (doctor, lawyer, engineer, etc.) tends to be far more sought after by employers than degrees in advanced basket-weaving that people take so that their resumes are not put into the circular file without being read. In the midst of this are “vocational” degrees awarded by community colleges which rightfully prepare people for many mid-ranked jobs (which do not compete with those running the country.

We live in a country which still has a significant level of bigotry and bias and, while it’s OK to do good deeds, it is also seen as “normal” for the people at the top not to be comfortable with those in other demographic groups to succeed enough to compete with them. The fact that “the others” outnumber them significantly justifies (according to human nature) their doing everything possible (including cheating) to maintain a status quo of relative social position.

Jeff

Unfortunately, liberals would scream blue murder if schools went back to teaching social virtues. ~Wendy

I'm a Liberal and I would be fine with schools teaching social virtues as long as freedom of/from religion was respected.
Also sweeping generalizations, (liberals would scream blue murder) are not helpful because they apply broad, absolute rules or stereotypes to specific instances or groups without proper evidence or consideration of individual differences. This leads to unfair, inaccurate, and illogical conclusions that ignore diversity and exceptions, often resulting in misunderstanding, division, and prejudice.
Such overstatements undermine credible argumentation and can harm relationships by promoting judgment based on group affiliations rather than individual qualities.
They can also create barriers to growth, unity, and effective collaboration by fostering fear, animosity, and stereotyping instead of understanding and nuanced thinking

W: Unfortunately, liberals would scream blue murder if schools went back to teaching social virtues

B: I'm a Liberal and I would be fine with schools teaching social virtues as long as freedom of/from religion was respected.

The first amendment talks about freedom from religion. It says nothing about teaching social virtues. You'd be amazed at how far you can go with "Don't be a d**k". Treating others with respect and accepting them for who they are and what they bring to the table requires no belief in a higher power.

John Scalzi, an amazing sci-fi writer, wrote a great blog entry from personal experience:
https://whatever.scalzi.com/2005/09/03/being-poor/

For every "oh s/he's just lazy" you can also find the John Scalzi's who did manage to get the break they needed to extract themselves from poverty. But it shouldn't take "that one break".

Rgds,
HH/Sean

I thought the Bill of Rights was a social value.

Wendy: I am quite willing to say that people are poor because they are lazy, stupid or lacking the skills needed to work in a modern society because their culture doesn't promote personal virtues needed by workers.
...
Liberals and progressives want to solve social issues with transfer payments. I agree that a wealthy society shouldn't allow people to starve or suffer without essential medical care but several studies show that additional money above the amount needed to provide the basics will not lift people out of poverty if they lack social skills.

This fails to acknowledge the extreme disproportionality of income distribution experienced over the past several decades. The gap between compensation for high level executives and average worker income has gone from absurd to disastrous. Why give multi-millionaires big raises at the expense of the poor, and then complain about ineffectual 'transfer payments'?

Call me a 'progressive liberal' if you will, but rather than denigrating people as 'lazy' and 'stupid' we need to incentivize work performed by those in lower income brackets with compensation that more appropriately reflects increases in productivity. "Trickle-down" has long proven to be a farce.

Tom

I am quite willing to say that people are poor because they are lazy, stupid or lacking the skills needed to work in a modern society because their culture doesn't promote personal virtues needed by workers.

Having been essentially dumped on the street after high school, as my parents sold our family home and moved full time into a motor home, eliminating any safety net of use for me, (right in the midst of the early 1980's and stagflation!), I have known poverty. I was neither lazy, nor stupid, but lacking in the certifications required to prove that I had the required skills.

Sometimes shit just happens. I am not so quick to judge.

On the other hand, I am probably as well off now, because of the trial by fire. On the other, I don't know how I managed to turn down the offer to become a multi-lingual and cultured call girl, when I couldn't even afford to eat. I guess that Catholic upbringing had some backbone.

Walk in their shoes....

IP,
who will be eternally grateful to that random guy in Boston, who, as I passed by his apartment on the way to the laundromat, asked if I would like some leftover excess WIC food...feasted for a month on that pound of butter, 5 lbs of Velveta, and jar of honey

I've long thought David Brooks was an intellectually light weight blowhard, who specializes in sweeping strawman arguments that lack any sort of factual basis.

That article changed my opinion of him. I now believe David Brooks is an arrogant, intellectually light weight blowhard, who specializes in sweeping strawman arguments that lack any sort of factual basis.

I am quite willing to say that people are poor because they are lazy, stupid or lacking the skills needed to work in a modern society because their culture doesn't promote personal virtues needed by workers.

The difficulty is that all of these statements ("people are poor because....") are always going to be inaccurate.

Some people are lazy and are poor because they are lazy. Some people are very hardworking and are still poor despite being hardworking. Some people are unlucky, or below average intelligence, or have a negative incident that wasn't their fault - and end up being poor because of it. Some people are unlucky, or below average intelligence, or have a negative incident that wasn't their fault - and still end up not being poor. Some people are lazy and poor - and would have been poor even if they hadn't been lazy. Some people are hardworking and rich - but would have been rich even if they hadn't been hardworking.

Some people are poor and they made bad choices (got addicted to drugs, dropped out of school, and the like). Some of those people would have been poor even without those bad choices - and some could have been not poor, and it was their bad choices that changed their life. And the same is true of people who are wealthy - some people are wealthy even though they made bad choices.

Ideally, as a society we would want to help people who are lacking certain things that are necessary for a successful life where those deficiencies are through no fault of their own - to make sure everyone has a chance to avoid poverty. Some of the things people lack, though, are not material. It's much harder to form a consensus on whether we (as a society) should make up for that. They might lack capabilities or intelligence, or they may lack a role model or someone to serve as a governing influence in their young life. They might lack self-control or decision-making skills relative to their peer group. They might also lack judgment or drive or ambition.

I think Brooks is correct on his factual assessment - the "what is" questions, rather than the "what should be" question. There's a large and pretty solid body of evidence that providing material resources to poor people in rich countries doesn't do much to improve their life outcomes. Largely that's because poor people in rich countries are in a different situation than poor people in poor countries. In poor countries, there are plenty of people that are poor that wouldn't have been if they had been in a country with better resources or opportunities or what have you - they've got all the non-material things they need for success, they just lack a context to be successful in. But in rich countries, people like that are often not-poor (not all of them, but a lot of them). So when you provide material assistance to the poor in a rich country, you don't get much beneficial change in life outcomes.

The key dilemma is how to get people the non-material things they need. We, as a society, probably can't even agree on the vector for getting people non-material things they need - let alone what those things should be.

I think Brooks is correct on his factual assessment - the "what is" questions, rather than the "what should be" question. There's a large and pretty solid body of evidence that providing material resources to poor people in rich countries doesn't do much to improve their life outcomes. Largely that's because poor people in rich countries are in a different situation than poor people in poor countries. In poor countries, there are plenty of people that are poor that wouldn't have been if they had been in a country with better resources or opportunities or what have you - they've got all the non-material things they need for success, they just lack a context to be successful in. But in rich countries, people like that are often not-poor (not all of them, but a lot of them). So when you provide material assistance to the poor in a rich country, you don't get much beneficial change in life outcomes.

The best predictor in the US of a child's future income is their parent's income. Other things matter, but nothing as much as that.

Which brings me to the reason why I think Brooks is an insufferable blowhard. From the last para in his article:

If you can find some lefties who are willing to spend money fighting poverty but also willing to promote the traditional values and practices that enable people to rise, you can sign me up for the revolution.

What specifically are these traditional values and practices and how do we promote them?

Let me give a liberal/progressive value--not exclusive to liberals/progressives but primarily advanced by them. The civil rights movement. The Black poverty rate has significantly decreased since the 1960s. It turns out that removing barriers to employment and advancement really does help lift people out of poverty.

Here is another one: Equal rights for women. Same story. Not exclusively a liberal/progressive value, but primarily advanced by liberals and progressives. The poverty rate for women also decreased significantly.

Which brings me to the first paragraph of his article:

Last May a study came out suggesting that merely giving people money doesn’t do much to lift them out of poverty.

Call and raise. The study Brooks cited shows giving people a small amount of money doesn't do much. But what if you give them a lot of money? The Earned Income Tax Credit which at its core is giving money to poor people. The EITC has been shown to lift people out of poverty, improve healthcare outcomes, increase employment, and so on. There are many criticisms and areas for improvement but it does work.

So small amounts don't do much, but large amounts do. I wonder why Brooks "forgot" to mention the EITC? I don't want to suggest the answer too much, but Brooks has an enormous blindspot when it comes to facts that don't fit his thesis. Unfortunately, in this case the facts have a liberal bias.

The EITC has generally been supported by both parties, by the way. Clinton, Obama, and Biden all were stanch advocates. As was Ronald Reagan, it should be said. So Brooks can't claim progressives/liberals are against this conservative value.

First, thank all-yall for being so civil in this thread. A refreshing discussion.
Second, this is really hard. If there were a magic wand solution it would have been implemented long ago.
Third, while money can't solve everything food insecurity and health insecurity are real problems, especially for the children. Those are costs that society should welcome paying to offer those kids the best chance to become healthy, contributing adults. Cutbacks to SNAP and children's health programs are cruel and self-defeating.

Rgds,
HH/Sean

The U.S. Census Bureau's working paper, "Changes in Milestones of Adulthood," reports that only 17% of young adults (ages 25-34) had reached all five markers of adulthood in 2023. This is a significant decrease from the 26% who had reached them in 2005. These markers are: Completing their education, being employed or actively seeking work, living away from their parents, marrying and living with a child (becoming a parent or step-parent). I found this shocking since the foundation of a thriving society depends on people becoming educated, working and forming families...


...I'm a centrist. I believe that the virtues and qualities which were the foundation of American success should be promoted. Unfortunately, liberals would scream blue murder if schools went back to teaching social virtues.

Don't be too shocked. The Case-Schiller housing index in 2005 was at 120. A high level. Now it is at 331. Housing is much, much more expensive than it was 20 years ago. That means people are living with their parents longer and delaying having kids for economic reasons. Teaching social virtues won't change that.


https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=1M5Pj

... Brooks is an insufferable blowhard....

Because it bears repeating.

Often.

That means people are living with their parents longer and delaying having kids for economic reasons.

There seems to be a lack of desire to have children, perhaps contributed to by the doom scrolling on the environment. Marriage also seems to take place a lot later, if at all. And yes, home purchase takes serious coin, but lets be honest, it's never felt cheap to buy a house, and these days people seem content to rent until they can afford that HGTV ready home. Lots of fixer uppers out there at affordable prices, and today's mortgage rates are way lower than what I paid on my first home. (Before you argue it was cheaper back then, income was much lower too.)

The U.S. Census Bureau's working paper, "Changes in Milestones of Adulthood," reports that only 17% of young adults (ages 25-34) had reached all five markers of adulthood in 2023.

Just because the author considers these "5 markers of adulthood" to be the defining measure, doesn't mean those ages 25-34 consider them all important. Our kids are in that age bracket, educated professionals who live on their own and contributing to society. Who are we to say that is not enough to be considered Adults?

Yeah, I would love to become a grandmother, but I am for sure keeping that to myself!

IP,
who always thought choosing not to have kids was a much more valid choice than having them because it was expected of you

Teaching social virtues won't change that.

It depends to whom are you teaching those social values?

It needs to be taught to those in the current administration. After all, they are the ones who CHOOSE to make it virtually impossible for the younger generation(s) to fulfill those values. It became impossible due to deliberate barriers placed that made the historic social values mostly unattainable.

DOES THAT SEEM FAMILIAR??? IT SHOULD.

First, thank all-yall for being so civil in this thread. A refreshing discussion.
Second, this is really hard. If there were a magic wand solution, it would have been implemented long ago.


I think something is happening. The far right and far left are collapsing. Fewer people agree with either of the extremes.

Perhaps most of us feel betrayed by both extremes.

As human beings in the US, we agree on an industrial policy, better education policies, better pay practices, and a higher standard of living, and that last one matters the most to this discussion. Assuming people are lazy is neither here nor there; paying people in a cost structure while raising the American standard of living is of the utmost importance.

We are all concluding that time is being wasted.

The best predictor in the US of a child's future income is their parent's income. Other things matter, but nothing as much as that.

Sure. Because their parents' income correlates with a lot of attributes that their parents have. Educational attainment, attitudes towards work and education, etc. Children who grow up in households with parents that have all of the things that help make someone fit better into the modern world are themselves going to fit better into the modern world.

What specifically are these traditional values and practices and how do we promote them?

Work hard. Defer gratification. Fulfill your responsibilities. Save for future needs. Invest in yourself. Make good choices. Be part of a larger community. Etc.

I don't think Brooks is referring to the sorts of societal values that underlie a lot of political debates, but more individual traits. What conservatives might refer to as "bourgeois values."

The study Brooks cited shows giving people a small amount of money doesn't do much.

For good or bad, it's not just that one study. Once we actually started studying whether just giving people money actually resulted in improved life outcomes, it wasn't really close:

Many of the studies are still ongoing, but, at this point, the results aren’t “uncertain.” They’re pretty consistent and very weird. Multiple large, high-quality randomized studies are finding that guaranteed income transfers do not appear to produce sustained improvements in mental health, stress levels, physical health, child development outcomes or employment. Treated participants do work a little less, but shockingly, this doesn’t correspond with either lower stress levels or higher overall reported life satisfaction.

Homeless people, new mothers and low-income Americans all over the country received thousands of dollars. And it's practically invisible in the data. On so many important metrics, these people are statistically indistinguishable from those who did not receive this aid.

I cannot stress how shocking I find this and I want to be clear that this is not “we got some weak counterevidence.” These are careful, well-conducted studies. They are large enough to rule out even small positive effects and they are all very similar. This is an amount of evidence that in almost any other context we’d consider definitive.

https://www.theargumentmag.com/p/giving-people-mon...

One can make the argument that if we gave them gobsmackingly large amounts of money the results would be different. But there's two main problems with that. First, the amounts of money under consideration weren't gobsmackingly large, but they were pretty big relative to the incomes of the people they were being given to - and the absence of even small benefits from that size grant doesn't augur for a better outcome with bigger transfers. And second, gobsmackingly large transfers aren't on offer. They weren't plausible even before these studies all came back negative - and now that there's a scholarly body of work showing that just giving money doesn't help people's life outcomes (or those of their kids), there's virtually no chance of big transfers ever happening.

I wonder why Brooks "forgot" to mention the EITC?

Probably because that's baked into the analysis of the studies. They all take place in the context of a massive social safety net - net federal transfers to households in the bottom quintile are somewhere north of $20,000 per year or so. Brooks isn't arguing that those things should go away - he's arguing that progressives are going to have to come to terms that there's not much that adding to the dollars or material goods that go to lower-income households is going to accomplish to fight generational poverty.

The core argument is that people who are suffering these negative life outcomes - and their children - are unlikely to be helped by giving them more money. They are lacking critical elements that are not remediated by more money. Back when I was learning econ, the fashion was to call that "human capital" - the accumulation of knowledge, skills, personality traits, mental health, physical health, and everything else that enables and encourages someone to be a self-sufficient and economically stable member of society. If parents don't have that human capital, their kids are less likely to have it either. If absence of human capital is a more material determinant of these social ills than absence of money, then trying to fight social ills by using money transfers is unlikely to be successful.

Back when I was learning econ, the fashion was to call that "human capital" - the accumulation of knowledge, skills, personality traits, mental health, physical health, and everything else that enables and encourages someone to be a self-sufficient and economically stable member of society.

This is essentially Brooks' argument.

Going back to David Brooks' I'm "not a liberal", is precisely because he rejects the purely materialist approach to solving social problems, which he defines as a key feature of liberalism. Again, he argues that liberalism focuses primarily on economic inequality and material solutions, such as redistributing income or providing cash assistance, but fails to acknowledge the essential role of nonmaterial qualities that you cite such as skills, character, and moral virtues in fostering personal and social well-being.

From what I gleaned from Wendy's posting of Brooks' article (thanks again, Wendy!), Brooks believes that rising out of poverty, and achieving a thriving society, requires a blend of material support and cultivation of human capital, such as diligence, honesty, good health, and dependability. He claims, “I don't think the left grasps reality in all its fullness,” criticizing the left for overlooking these nonmaterial contributors to flourishing.

At its core, Brooks’s definition of "not a liberal" centers on his belief that effective policy and personal development must go beyond material interventions, prioritizing virtue, human capital, and social cohesion over mere economic redistribution.

Makes sense.

Pete

An interesting thing where I work on success.

My immediate manager left the company a month ago. She kept getting into fights with the people around her and was begging for a resolution that was not favorable. She was fired.

One of her assistant managers is African American. My immediate manager did not understand the issues involved with being African American in the workplace.

I found out where my ex-manager had gone. I visited her recently. The last word was that the assistant manager was out to get her and disliked whites. This was sad for me to hear. My ex-manager does not understand how her ideas she hurt her and got her fired.

Much of rural America does not understand urban issues. My ex-manager was from out in the sticks. The assistant manager was just trying to stop the random comments directed at all sorts of people, not just African Americans. Those comments destroyed her career. The assistant manager was not trying to stop racism. The general manager got the reports from many sources on stray comments from the manager.

Discussing other people in the workplace is a self-defeating problem. Sad.

Would we go into the workplace and discuss the lazy people? It can cost you the job. In this case it was discussing "the competition".

Much of rural America does not understand urban issues. My ex-manager was from out in the sticks. The assistant manager was just trying to stop the random comments directed at all sorts of people, not just African Americans. Those comments destroyed her career. The assistant manager was not trying to stop racism. The general manager got the reports from many sources on stray comments from the manager.

That's part of human capital as well. The knowledge and skills necessary to avoid problems in a workplace culture, independent of your ability to do the job. This is really debilitating for a lot of people, and also probably linked to their family of origin. If your parents are high-income earners in a professional environment, you don't just get the benefit of their money - you get taught how to behave in a professional environment.

It doesn't necessarily mean you have the same values or culture, but it means you at least have the skills to perform the values and/or culture you're trying to fit into. The behavioral analog to code switching. That's a thing that also can't be solved by just transferring money into the household.

It's not just "sticks vs. urban." It can also be a "low income vs. middle class" thing as well. Selective colleges are finding that they're having trouble retaining the "first generation" students that they spend a lot of time recruiting. Part of it is that the first-gen students sometimes lack not just the financial wherewithal, but also the social/human capital needed to flourish in college environment.

I remember the Finns tried guaranteed income and cut the program before it was finished. While conservatives cut it, it also didn't seem to be working as expected.

Al,

We all have a bit of any symptom. I think the ex-manager had no concept of her paranoia. She is still in a bunker mentality.

My .02 on an excellent thread.

I think the huge post WW2 GI bill is instructive. Some govt cash to bootstrap yourself can make a huge difference if one does not have the resources. So many returning servicemen were able to achieve things they never would have been able to otherwise. Alternatively, they had to work hard for their undergrad and graduate degrees in much tougher university academic environments than we have now.

In short...both sides can have elements of accuracy but politics these days for some reason must be binary. Opportunity and work ethic both required.

I think the huge post WW2 GI bill is instructive. Some govt cash to bootstrap yourself can make a huge difference if one does not have the resources.

Both DH and I are from families where our parents were the first to finish college...or high school for that matter. Parents were depression babies and had to quit school to get a job to help the family survive. My FIL used the GI bill to go from a car mechanic in WWII to an engineer at NASA. Dad was educated via the Catholic Church, and never would have made it without their help. Mom got her GED and BS after 6 kids, followed by a double masters paid for by work. (She had to give up a full private high school scholarship in the 1930's when her family was facing bankruptcy.) Grandparents certainly didn't have the means. I had to pay my way through school, and DH came out with loans as well, but we made sure our kids did not have that burden. 18 is not the age of actual maturity, particularly for boys.

IP

It is odd, my dad and his brother were the first to finish college on his side of the family. Both became doctors.

My mother's family in Ireland was well-educated. Her mother came from a family of 8 children. Seven of them graduated from college, and a few graduated post graduate programs. That is on my mom's mother's side of the family. My grandfather on my mom's side was a reckless drunk. His family was not alcoholic. They were not ignorant, but not well-educated. I never met this grandfather. His side of the family is the most distant from me. He died when I was just one year old.

Success was leaving Ireland in those days. Today, success is staying in Ireland.

It is odd, my dad and his brother were the first to finish college on his side of the family. Both became doctors.

Grandma was a hotel maid, Grandpa was a drunk barber who more often than not did not appear for work.

They had 7 children: 5 boys and 2 girls.

An aunt had some money, and she paid for the first boy to go to college. When he graduated he paid for the second boy to go to college. The third boy wasn’t academic and went into the Army and became a lifer. The 4th and 5th also went to college, paid by the prior graduates. The girls were not expected to, and did not go to college. The last boy to graduate paid back the Aunt, almost 20 years later. Quite a good use of the money, wouldn’t you say? People from the Depression were smart about some things, and I think this was one of them.

My Dad came home from WWII (Pacific theater) and used the GI bill to get a PhD and went on to head a research department at a steel and specialty metals company. Others were engineers in aerospace or rose to high positions in commerce. The women were wives.

That was the time, and I’m glad it’s over. The GI bill was a roaring success, lifting the country out of the post war recession and schooling an entire generation so we were ready for “the space race.” Shame that women were unrecognized until those dastardly libruls and feminazis started making noise about it.

The programs back then were a huge success. The argument today is that low taxes lead to success. The object is not to raise anyone else out of poverty. Sad comment on this country.

My grandmother's side of the family, mom's mom, produced 2 boys as a doctor and a lawyer, and 5 sisters as two home eco teachers, one dentist, and two other educated great aunts I barely met because of my parents' immigration. The oldest sister of 8 just remained "pretty". LOL

On dad's side, one of his father's brothers insisted on getting educated and became a Ph.D. They all worked in the London sweatshops. My grandmother on this side of the family was from a Dublin, Ireland, Jewish family with little education that learned from each other around the dinner table. Businesswise, very savvy people.

"An aunt had some money, and she paid for the first boy to go to college. When he graduated he paid for the second boy to go to college. The third boy wasn’t academic and went into the Army and became a lifer. The 4th and 5th also went to college, paid by the prior graduates. The girls were not expected to, and did not go to college. The last boy to graduate paid back the Aunt, almost 20 years later. Quite a good use of the money"

That is just an awesome story ! Family banded together, luv how the youngest one paid
back the Aunt who initiated the whole chain. Sounds like the same method used by the modern immigrants from Asia and elsewhere who came to America. Probably not good for the Country
that the chain of immigrant success stories has been broken by the current policies
installed.

The RAND Corporation estimated that approximately 22% of K-12 students were chronically absent in the 2024-2025 school year.

When I was in the Philippines, I found that one of my landlord's helpers was going to school in fifth grade because she'd been pulled out of school early to go to work. I think she was 18 or 20 years old. The landlady found out she didn't know how to count and sent her to school. She graduated and dropped out trying to snag a husband. Mandatory schooling is a relatively new thing in the countryside of the Philippines. I wonder if that 22% has a large number of working kids in it.

The RAND Corporation estimated that approximately 22% of K-12 students were chronically absent in the 2024-2025 school year.

Hey, look on the bright side. It was 28% three years earlier : )

It case anybody is interested, the metric is "absent at least 10% of school days for all causes combined", which presumably ranges from skipping school, through holding down a job, to leukaemia. But it's consistent.

Jim

It case anybody is interested, the metric is "absent at least 10% of school days for all causes combined", which presumably ranges from skipping school, through holding down a job, to leukaemia. But it's consistent.

Consistent, but flawed. I graduated high school at 16 as a junior, by simply taking more classes than study halls and doubling up on English class one year. Even with the "heavy" load, I was mind numbingly bored in what was considered a "good" school. In my school district they had the 10% max absence metric back in the '70's as well, and Spring of my last year I was warned that if I was absent one more time, this A student would have to repeat the last year due to chronic absence. It was the very definition of face time required. Perhaps I should have simply entertained myself by acting up in class. It seemed to be the more accepted way to deal with boredom.

IP,
similarly irritated by those perfect attendance awards, gained by coming in to school when sick and getting my kids sick too

The challenge is that the top 5% of any arbitrary group does not require spoon-feeding. Want to learn about art history? Read a book. Want to learn calculus, well it's probably helpful to have a teacher tutor you to get over the rough bits, but from then on - read a book. (Frankly it would have been helpful if the appropriate terms were used when they were teaching slopes and areas in elementary school).

When I hired people, I paid little attention to their educational background. What we were doing was novel and not generally taught in school anyway and I felt that all a diploma proved was that you had enough time and concentration to get through four years of college. I ended up with people with doctorates, college dropouts, graduates of technical community colleges and a few who neglected to list their educational credentials. One of the dropouts became the highest earning employee for multiple decades. I'm not sure of the formal education of my final administrative assistant as I "stole" her when the company she worked for closed their NYC office (admittedly, I had been interfacing with her for years which provided me with far more information than any resume).

The final "two" (turned out to be three) years of my engineering degree were taken at night (4.5 hours per night, four nights a week). When it came time to graduate, the advisor discovered that (for reasons frankly I don't remember) that I had dropped Electrical Engineering 101 which was the prerequisite for all the other EE courses I had taken. He told me I would have to take it before I graduated. Fortunately, I was able to negotiate taking a post-grad level course instead.

I guess, if you are Bill Gates, Steve Jobs or Mark Zuckerberg (or other independent successful business owner - or applying for a job with me) an actual diploma is not too important, but for the rest applying for a job in the STEM field, it is. For those who are interested, you can take every course given by MIT for free on-line. After four years, presumably, you have taken everything you would need for one of their degrees. For some reason, it won't help you much if the job you are applying for demands a college degree. There is no particular correlation between education and intelligence.

"Just for fun", I took an MBA in night school after being in business for a number of years.

Because my undergrad degree was not in "business" I had to take all the standard prerequisites before being allowed to take an MBA. To be honest, I forget whether I crammed them all into one or maybe it was two, terms. I then scratched my head and wondered why they made business students spend four years leaning what they were clearly able to cram into far less time.

As I had an engineering degree, the math taught during the MBA program (which was a struggle for many) was trivial. My most important take-away from the degree was an understanding of the one-dimensional decision-making methodology taught, and followed, by most MBAs(based on what was taught at Harvard and Stanford - which had a case study approach). Engineering is basically a problem-solving discipline based on the initial "proper" definition of the problem. Since my businesses were largely based on competitive bidding against people with MBAs, my problem definition was strongly biased by solving for the solution they were most likely to use and then adjusting my bid accordingly. That knowledge, acquired by sitting through multiple courses which taught "the best way to whatever" was well worth the time and effort as it taught me where "the others" would stick their pin.

In general, I didn't enjoy taking my undergraduate degree and ended up (in the real world) using the elective courses I took far more than the "core" (which I almost never needed). The MBA was enjoyable as it felt like playing most of the time, but frankly, while that short cram session of the business pre-requisites taught most of the skills, the rest of the time was spend hammering in the "thinking" part, which in reality was the ossification of the thought process which I was able to take advantage of.

I guess school is what you make of it - unless someone else coopts its importance.

Jeff

The challenge is that the top 5% of any arbitrary group does not require spoon-feeding.

Or as Mom always reminded us when we complained about our teacher, "Learning is a self process. Teachers can only help provide the tools that will help you learn, but they can't make you learn." Sadly, the best tool possible that they could provide, comprehension of the material vs memorization, tended to be sadly lacking.

I guess I never really understood why, if learning was my responsibility, did I have to be babysat in the process thereof. My grades showed I was learning just fine with my approach.

IP,
a latchkey kid since the age of 6 and well able to take care of herself

"Frankly it would have been helpful if the appropriate terms were used when they were teaching slopes and areas"

Same with equations. At 1st, I was puzzled by what f(x) was. I understood
that it was just saying that the equation was a function of the variable x,
but the instructor could have easily said that f(x) is the same as saying y, so
don't let the different naming convention confuse you. But that would have
been too easy,lol.

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