Hi Linda,

Neither of my parents or in-laws went to college, my mother-in-law also dropped out of school in 9th grade in Indonesia, where she and my father-in-law grew up, and eventually divorced my father-in-law when she only had $8, and found a job and a place to live and kept working hard, she's still working at age 70, 30 years after her divorce, she's always been very independent, and her 2 sons (my husband and his brother) both joined the Marines as first generation Americans.

My father sent 5 kids to Catholic school on 1 salary, none of us went to college after high school either. One of my sisters got a job as a computer programmer for a pharmaceutical company when she was 20 and saved all her money and bought a house for herself by age 30 without a spouse, just on her income, and then sent herself to college at age 40 and got a teaching degree, then after a few years of teaching went back to programming for the pharmaceuticals.

My other sister who was born with a disability and suddenly died recently, worked while going to college to help pay the tuition, she took buses and trains all over Philadelphia, that's where we grew up, and she earned multi-degrees including a Master's degree and became a teacher also.

My brother joined the Air Force after being out of high school for a year and couldn't find a job, then the Air Force sent him thru college, they have the University of the Air Force in Lackland AFB in Texas. He stayed in the AF for 8 years and then got a government job and then after that worked for an internet company.

My nephew had a scholarship to Temple University and didn't like college and quit and joined the Air Force and is still in it 14 years later at age 33.

My other nephew got a scholarship to Georgetown University and studied Foreign Affairs and government studies, and now works for Deloitte and earns $65,000 yearly at age 25.

Another nephew (I have many nephews and 1 niece) went to college and majored in music because he played and taught saxophone, guitar and piano, and can't find a high paying job in that industry.

Other nephew joined the Marines, signed up early before he turned 18 and went immediately after graduating high school in 2003 right at the beginning of the Iraq war, he served several tours of Iraq and is still in the Marines 7 years later and is a fire-arms instructor at Camp LeJeune in NC.

I didn't go to college, I paid my way thru modeling school at age 19 by working at Dunkin Donuts and Woolworths, and took buses and trains all over the Philadelphia area also, and then save $1,000's of my modeling money to leave my parents house within 1 year after graduating from modeling school before age 20. Then got married, raised stepsons, had my own sons, and taught myself web design at age 34, learned online from someone much younger than me, that's the difference between me and my siblings, I know the age of the teacher doesn't matter, we can learn what we need to learn from anyone who wants to teach us if we want to learn it.

I have another sister and brother... (3 sisters, 2 brothers, my father sent FIVE of us to Catholic school, but my disabled sister had to go to public school because the Catholic school wasn't barrier-free) they also worked hard and never went to college, raised their kids and are the parents of the nephews I mentioned up there.

People need to work hard, set goals, and do their best, you're right...we have everything in USA, people just need to reach out and get what they want, in the right way, by working for it.

Kathleen : "we have everything in USA, people just need to reach out and get what they want, in the right way, by working for it."

Linda,

I came back to say even when people are on a difficult path at a young age, they have time to fix it if they WANT to. My oldest brother quit high school and then got married at age 19, he was in trouble with the law a few times, had a baby before age 20, got divorced by 22, that's the baby who quit Temple University and is 33 now and a career Air Force man. Then my brother had 2 kids during his 2nd marriage, one of those is the one working for Deloitte, so my brother's mistake-filled youth made him want to be a someone his kids could be proud of, and he steered them in the right direction.

2 of my cousins did time in jail, one of them now owns a painting company, he's my age, and has painting contracts all over southeastern PA and does a lot of business painting large apartment complexes and condo complexes.

The other cousin continued to get in trouble until now, he still does stupid things and got re-arrested last year, he's just a year or two older than me in his mid-40's. People make their own decisions.

yes people make their own decisions and pathways ! Some learn and strive to recover from mistakes ... families suffer from bad decisions ...

Why did people come to USA from other countries? Many reasons.

My mother's parents came from Ireland in the early 1900's, when they were both children, they didn't meet until later when both were in the same town in Pennsylvania as adults. In the early 1900's when my mother's father came over here, young boys were sent to work in the coalmines in Ireland as young as age 7.

My in-laws were raised in Indonesia, both were half Dutch and half Indonesian, they faced harassment there from being half caucasian, that's why my mother-in-law quit high school, harassment from other kids who were full Indonesian. Isn't that amazing that we caucasians in the western world don't face that or don't have to think about it?

In USA, nobody is forced to work in coalmines at age 7, I hope they weren't in the early 1900's either when my grandfather got here, at least he wasn't working underground as a child.

I hope nobody is facing such bad harassment for being biracial or a minority so much that they quit school either, of course, it still happens, I just hope it's an immaturity thing among young people and not a lifelong hate among people when they grow up.