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Comment by rayiner | Hacker News Reader

That’s not the median income of households with college-aged kids. On average parents pay over half of tuition and living expenses for children: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-07-23/universit...

It’s fair to say Elon’s family wasn’t poor. But the level of support he got wasn’t any more than the typical journalist who is criticizing him.

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Taking a loan is not the same as able to afford it. 40% of the households with college aged kids earn less than 74k. https://www.statista.com/statistics/782411/parental-income-o...

Also it's insane to compare Elon's family with a Journalist. Elon's father invested $200k for 10% in his first venture while half the journalist earn less than 50k. https://www.bls.gov/ooh/media-and-communication/reporters-co...

And the median family income of a U Penn undergraduate is almost $200,000 annually. Heck at Georgia Tech, where I went, it’s $130,000, and almost 1/4 of the students come from the top 5%. To put it another way—Musk’s level of family support is hardly unusual compared to that of the thousands of engineers who work for him.

Journalism at the national level is extremely competitive, and draws from a highly credentialed talent pool. The reason people with such credentials pursue such a low paying job is because their families are often quite affluent—they are often doctors, lawyers, etc.

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