There are other jobs than doctor. You can become a registered nurse with only a bachelor's ($100k+ salary). Engineering pays well. The trades pay well.

What doesn't pay well is zero-effort required jobs like Starbucks barista or social media influencer (is this even a job?). If anyone can do it with no pain required to pass some sort of schooling then it's not going to pay well. Nursing pays well because people are too lazy to make it through 4 years of schooling.

If you're going to come in and claim life circumstances prevent people from getting a 4 year degree, a public school costs at most $120k including living expenses for 4 years. Even if you get _no_ financial aid - which doesn't happen as FAFSA exists - $120k is an entirely manageable sum to pay off over the course of 20 years. And that calculation assumes you don't work at all during summers or during the school year.

Social media influencer is not a job, its a business, and the people doing well at it are making serious money, more than most software engineers. However it's more of a winner takes all market, akin to e.g. acting.

>You can become a registered nurse with only a bachelor's ($100k+ salary).

Where are you getting this number, that is not even remotely close to any of the nurses and lower level health practitioners I know

I'd get absolutely chewed out as a Starbucks barista or working in food service in general. I don't think it's fair to say it's a job that requires zero effort.

that's in the US though

in Germany even if you're poor you can go to the University and succeed

my friends all studied and they were from normal working-class families

everyone gets a chance and all you need is put some effort

The US isn't different for 'regular' poor people. Two years of community college to be a nurse and you're good to go with a job in any city.

Except in the US there are enclaves of destitute poverty, generational poverty, extreme levels of incarceration, job prohibitions for low-level convicts (which can be 1/2 the men in some areas), high crime, schools with low graduation rates, weak access to things like dental care, poor transit options for medical care, pollution, insufficient care for the elderly, lack of mental health care, opioid addiction, children with high rates of lead poisoning, etc. Those people have the deck stacked against them.

I thought that in Germany you were essentially hand-picked by age 10 what educational track you would wind up on.

if you didn't get picked you can still unlock the University track

you'd need to study 3 years to get your Abitur, however (which is only 1 year more than Gymnasium folks would)

ps. this may be different by state

Literally everyone goes to the gymnasium nowadays.

You can go to college for free or extremely cheap in the US if you are poor as well. A lot of poor people don't know this which is a problem, but the option is still there.