> ...the issue is that society gives up on them before they even have a choice...
I was able to learn useful skills on my own without the education system supporting me. No doubt, high school helped build a useful foundation for learning other useful things. I was teaching myself skills using freely ( or the next best thing ) available tools and resources online. American poverty in 2020 includes access to the internet. This is evident by the interaction of impoverished and low socio-economic status Americans on social media. They're not here debating the systemic causes of poverty on HN, they're consuming mind numbing media on worldstarhiphop. Before I was able to get internet access at home I used the local library, or at my high school. I won't dox myself by talking about my specific professional interests, save to say they were important enough to me that I devoted my own time to researching it. I refuse to believe that there are people in first-world countries who have no access to useful resources like this. YMMV, obviously. I didn't have anyone in my life who encouraged me to do X, I just felt X was cool and I really wanted to understand more. Most of the people I've met in my field are the same. I don't mean to project my own thoughts and experiences on to everyone. I feel that my natural inclinations were to learn, and all of the people I grew up with who were similarly gifted and inclined ended up escaping poverty in one form or another. You could probably count yourself among this cohort.