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Comment by hueving | Hacker News Reader

>Even if they make the same on all of their standardized tests, make the same grades, and go to the same college, and get the same degree.....

>Who's going to be more successful with the same amount of hard work?

Success is tied more to education than anything. Good education just also happens to be tied to wealth as well. So by framing it with them getting the same education, you have actually eliminated most of the advantage the wealthy kid had. Unless you are just defining success as 'being rich', in which case the wealthy kid doesn't even have to be educated.

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You're underestimating the power of connections. I would never say that hard work won't make you successful in the US, but coming from a wealthy family creates a lot of opportunities earlier on in life that poor kids will have to work hard to see. Coming from a wealthy, or even upper middle class, family means maybe your summer senior year of high school is spent interning with your uncle's firm instead of working for extra spending money. It means you can ask your parents for career advice (poor parents don't have career advice because they don't have careers). It means you have an idea, from growing up with it, what success in a career path in a developed country looks like. All of these things are tremendously valuable.

YES! Exactly this.

Passing down of beliefs and behaviors is almost more valuable than passing down money.

You're embedding positive or negative behaviors into someone's personality.

1>Passing down the belief that education is valuable

2>Passing down the belief that investing in the future is more valuable than short term spending.

etc.

Also having resources in general is a massive benefit. 1>having security allows wealthy kids to take more risks/reap more rewards.

2>More free time to learn and advance themselves

3>ability to take low paying jobs purely to make connections/build job skills

4>Status is a language that every one understands at a primitive level and so just getting more respect in general which means better promotions, better mates, etc.

In the United States, success is much more tied to how successful your parents are than anything else. "Social mobility is dying" isn't just said for one's health.

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