That must be part of the answer, but it can’t be the whole answer, or close to the whole. There’s huge variation in educational outcomes among those who get the access that you describe. What explains why some people in this group have such good outcomes, while most have relatively lackluster outcomes?
I've had the unique experience of private tutoring many "elite" students in high school for math and physics for nearly a decade in Los Angeles a while back. Basically both rich kids and less fortunate kids who can only afford my tutoring rate every once in a while vs rich kids who can if they wanted to afford my help every day.
It's not simply "better textbooks" or "better schooling", the difference in education is VERY DRASTIC and being in LA I was able to see kids from drastically different backgrounds. Rich kids with having tutors for every class, maids for every other side chore so parents can actually pay attention to their kids, private high schools and middle schools that cost nearly $30-50k per year can buy you so many advantages most people can't even comprehend.
The biggest advantages I saw was better resources, better textbooks, curriculums that are ACTUALLY made with care and time, and most importantly teachers who were paid very very comfortable (ie, 6 figure salaries) who have the luxury to not be overworked, and can actually attend to their students as needed. Imagine every one of your teachers in middle school and high school, putting top notch effort into providing a great learning experience for you? Most people probably only had one teacher like that in their entire lifetime. And not to mention if the school was lacking in any area, many of the rich parents would hire their own private ex-olympian or ex-superstar specialist of whatever they desire.
People here are DRASTICALLY underestimating what extra educational resources can buy.
I saw that you copied this comment and replied to another comment below with it. I'm concerned that folks might see that as against HN guidelines. Again, I agree with what you're saying, and I just don't want you to be seen as a spammer.
It’s all about incentives and availability of resources, time and attention. When life gives too many shit lemons to both students and teachers, there’s no breathing room left for any of them to care a little bit more about any taught subject. When teachers are overburdened and children not supported by their environments, they just want to get rid of each other ASAP, and then it’s on parents to berate their kids for not wanting to study because whatever reason.
But if you can unburden both a teacher and a student from hardships of life even just a little bit, somehow a lot of attention and time free up to care about any subject, and explore it in different directions, not necessarily by what’s included in curriculum. Suddenly learning about something and practicing it can be actually fun.
Fun and joy of exploring stuff is so important yet so missing. Having some not even too fat stacks of cash can help with that drastically.
He did also go to school and even tried to go to college, he even got a scholarship! He had a lot of issues with the non math coursework however and did not finish any degree that I am aware of.
The reality of his life is a bit more complex than "oh a poor boy found a basic math text book and taught himself to be one of the greatest mathematicians in history"
What is more interesting here is to imagine if he grew up with wealth and formal training, would he have died at 32? Would he been given the time and resources to actually become one of the greatest math geniuses out there?
Ramanujan had a lot of raw talent, but it wasn't honed, and ultimately it was cut extremely short and wasted.
By definition, we know of zero examples of geniuses who were never discovered due to poverty, which makes it hard to extrapolate the rate at which this happens. But we do have examples of geniuses who grew up poor but were discovered nonetheless, which gives us hope that exceptional people in similar situations will be discovered. Especially today with global primary school enrollment rates close to 90% [1], and secondary school rates around 76%.
In at least one study I've seen, smaller class size didn't have much effect, but private tutoring did.
Yes a really "dumb" kid will still be "dumb" academically, but people here are severely underestimating what money can buy in education. I've seen really "dumb" kids be brought up to the level of "passably smart" simply because of resource access.
When you have teachers who are not overworked and are paid lovely salaries (ie 6 figure salaries), imagine every teacher you have actually cares and invested in your education? Imagine every class has recordings of every lecture as well as a curriculum that has a lot of forethought and time put into it? And imagine if the school has a lacking teacher, than the parents hire some ex-olympian, or ex-superstar coach or teacher to make up for that? I've seen parents hire ex-olympic athletes to get some untalented rich kid to close to olympic level.
Honestly, I think it's really understated how much educational spending can affect a kid. Most people will not see what I've seen, and even from someone who came from a middle class background who used to believe wealth does not matter when it came to education, even I was shocked by what money can buy in "academic success" and my opinion changed. I at this point, don't need to see a study because it was that drastic.
There is such a difference in environments in this country's education system. I was doing math in my sophomore year of high school that some don't see until college (or ever). Was I inherently smarter? Of course not. I had good teachers and books, I didn't have to work a job at night, etc.
A lot of people don't really care about doing much more than the minimum. Even talented people are like this. I'm sure a lot of us know (or, let's be honest, are the) people who busted their ass when they were younger, only to hit their 30s-40s and coast.
Who says these people would have kept busting their ass out for so long if they had a pot of gold waiting for them right after college?