I’ll give you 5
1) Having the money to pay for school and living expenses at school
The preferences for women and minorities in awarding scholarships is a factor in why men who enter school are less likely to finish than women. Fail to finish a degree, and you’re not going to be considered qualified for the professional position.
2)The choices made because you must prioritize spending
Sometimes the issue is not an inability to pay for college but limited funds to pay for it. Do you live at home and attend the local college with a modest reputation, knowing you can pay for four years? They may not offer the degree you really want. For example, my state has several medical and pharmacy schools. If you don’t live near one, you have to move - raising the cost of attending. Or you become a nurse and try to become a nurse practitioner. In other cases, people choose the degree path for which they can receive scholarships and support.
3) Having the ability to enter unpaid internships
This is a bigger problem in the nonprofit, media and art world. You’re expected to work for free in internships in the hope of getting a paying job later. Sheer demand for these high status jobs leaves many willing to go into debt while working for free. The poor and many in the middle class cannot afford to risk going into debt or being subsidized by parents in the HOPE of a prestigious career. This explains why many media jobs in publishing, marketing and so forth are held by kids from upper class families.
4) Pressure to “do better”
Why do so many people pressure their children to become doctors and lawyers over a business degree? Why is there such elitist disdain for the the skilled trades, such that strangers discourage a child from entering trade school? Because we generally want our children to do better than we did in life, and certain professions are seen as “better” both socially and economically.
5) Family status
Children of single mothers are 3–4x more likely to drop out of school, be held back a grade, join gangs, get arrested and have other bad life outcomes - compared to children raised by mothers of the same race, household income and community. Fathers matter that much.
A black married couple with high school degrees is less likely to be below the poverty line than never-married white women with kids. The married couple’s kids have better odds of good grades, good behavior and good life outcomes that lead them to be accepted at college and finish a degree.
The lack of a father in the house to provide additional supervision, discipline and structure means the white kid raised by a mom earning 60K is three times more likely to flunk out at any level than the white kid whose two parents earn 30K each. That he or she is far more likely to spend time in poverty, too, only amplifies the effect. That is why I list family status separately from “money to pay for school”.
