> On one hand you say your hard work and focus on future got you out of poverty.

I think that was just to add to the shock factor. The point was that his hard work would not have taken him anywhere, were it not for the money brought by his father's accident lawsuit.

Yes, this. My parents had very little to no ability to save money due to dealing with basic survival plus raising me. Had my father not passed away, they likely would not have saved any sort of money to support a college fund.

A fair amount of that money went to support my family because by that time my mother and my step father (also a fisherman) were disabled as a result of their job and practically unable to work. It was through that money plus the aid I got from FAFSA that allowed me to get through college and support my parents, though I had to make many other health sacrifices along the way.

So the money only supplemented your education? I too was born into poverty and FAFSA paid my way through college.

Play his role without the death of his father and incidental lawyer willing to work pro-bono (or, I suspect, on commission): would his hard work have gotten him anywhere besides an early grave? Having been to sea, I can personally say that I seriously doubt he would have gotten much further than his father. Born as grist for the mill.

...except that that's what we have student loans for. If you want to go to college and study CS, you can do that. Even if you don't have money from one of your parents dying.

I think that is exactly what he is saying.

There's always oil rigging work, which can start at 80k and pretty quickly get into the six figures with no college education

I really don't think that oil rigging work will "always" be there. I imagine that unskilled work in the field would mostly disappear in the next few decades.