The crappy truth about why poor smart kids don’t go to college: because they’re poor.

I don’t like to blame my failures in life on statistics or on my circumstances – but I would be an idiot to pretend that these things didn’t affect me. Your own intelligence and determination can only take you so far, the rest, I’ve found – is luck.

I imagine that there are other charts like this on the internet, and the numbers probably vary a bit. I chose this one because the data was plainly displayed and the source is reputable. If you have a high income, but bad scores in 8th grade math, or low income and great scores in 8th grade math, you have about the same chance of getting a bachelors degree (1 in 3). This is actually a pretty good chance, but high scores are rarer and rarer the poorer you get.

Now, back to me: I think I’m smart. On most standardized tests I always come out in the top 5% at least. I do really well on tests that measure problem solving, abstract thinking, creativity, logic, etc. I liked being smart. I took comfort in knowing that smart kids would one day rule the world.

I was in the low income bracket most of my life. My parents never saved for college for me. My parents are in their 50′s and still don’t own a home. I was raised with enough sense to know that I should not expect money in a situation like this.

I find it so silly that I tried to hide my poorness so desperately in high school. I remember coming back from Mock Trial and making the driver drop me off a couple streets away so they didn’t see that I lived in a rented condo. I tried so hard to pretend I was just like everyone else. (The truth is there were other kids in my school that were poor, they just hid it as well) In high school I had already realized the reality of the chart above, and I had given up. It was a stupid thing to do. I came up with excuses why I was “choosing” not to go to college when I wanted to go so badly. I just knew I couldn’t.

So where am I know? I can’t dwell on the past and I actually dislike bringing it up. But it’s important for me to look over that and see my mistakes. My circumstances influenced me a lot, and nobody ever showed me how to apply for college, but my negativity was inexcusable. That brings us to today.

What do poor kids need in this world to survive and succeed and surpass their parents income? Education – true education. College degrees are useful for getting jobs, but education is a priceless commodity. The way to bring education to low income kids is through technology. These kids, they will never have teachers of high enough quality or class sizes small enough that they can have a Socratic learning environment. No matter how much we picket and petition, public schools will NEVER match private and prep schools, because of the simple fact of class sizes, teacher motivation (they get paid better, they teach better – at least that’s my theory). The only way we can match them is to change the game around. A low income child may not get a teacher’s singular attention, but they will get Penny the Pen’s attention. Interactive game-like lessons that are the future in my opinion. Because computers are patient, and lessons will have a Pavlovian effect, the amount of information a child can learn rises exponentially. After all, children are just really super smart sponge-brain dogs. Kids can learn second languages in elementary school – heck, they can learn programming. Vocabularies could increase tenfold. They could learn finance and business skills. Just make learning into a game, because guess what, no matter how terrible and annoying and boring teachers are, REAL learning, has ALWAYS been fun for me! And every kid deserves that!

If you give a kid a book with fun math puzzles – he’ll learn some math and be interested. If you give a kid a computer with terabytes worth of information in a game-like setting, well, he’ll outpace almost all his classmates in one afternoon.

And guess what – this low income kid might still not get to go to college, but he’ll be smart, multi-lingual, and he will also be business savvy. This is the boss of the next century.