When I was 14 (1975) I was busted for driving my Mom's car for a month when she had her appendix out. My punishment was to be sent away to board/live at Georgetown Prep, only a few miles from Mom's house, with the clear understanding that Military School was next if I got in trouble again. Bob, it was a soul-sucking shit show. Their primary product was obedience and authoritarianism. Oh, and a non-ironic obsession with a completely ridiculous children's fantasy transparently authoritarian joke of dead Zombie Jesus story. I preferred Lord of The Rings.
Everyday my few freak friends met up and listened to records in my room where were actively Proto-Rastafarian. We were the kids who refused to do sports and went to the woods and played guitar for hours and tried to comprehend the Steely Dan Mu chord on guitar. (Impossible to play in most keys on guitar by the way.)
The first thing they said to you when you got to Prep was "Gentlemen you've been chosen to rule the world simply by dint of being here at Boarding School. Don't blow it. Cause if you can't hack it here you are going to be a peasant working for a pittance on a plantation." The message essentially is "We are elite everyone else is a serf."
And yet you also got a completely contradictory egalitarian message WITHIN our school/class. There were many reminders that everyone IN the school was equal, which in typical upper class fashion featured lots of casual group nudity in the locker rooms and showers that the 100 gay alcoholic priests who lived there on sabbatical also used along with the boys. Nothing strange with that right? Actually makes sense. It's about building trust and rapport amongst a fraternity for life. I.e. If you ALL engage in compromising behaviour together then you are you all complicit, but immune if you just circle the wagons and deny deny suppress the news PDA's buyoffs whatever it takes. It's like the prisoners dilemma in Game Theory.
I would have been class if '78 if I hadn't gotten booted halfway through senior year. Kavanaugh is Class Of '83. Didn't know him. Nor would I have hung with him if he was my age. He was a jock. A football player. Bob, football is sick, it's criminal assault, it's awful it's dangerous and teenage boys with no frontal lobes no impulse control should not be encouraged to be violent. Ever. But they are. Still. So yea he'd be the type to do what he is accused of.
I believe the ladies.
Roger Greenawalt
_________________________________________
Sean Dookie's name says it all. That sense of entitlement comes across in the preppy class that inhabits Boulder, Colorado these days... Privileged, arrogant and vacant, the ones who have all the advantages need to compensate... It's not all about them. Economic fascism is just as toxic as any other kind.
-Jeff Holland
_________________________________________
Dookie.... ha ha ha! What a shit bag; it's obvious.
Jeff Sackman
_________________________________________
Thought provoking as always, Bob.
I went to Andover (without repeating a year, as both my brothers did) for
my last two years of high school, and while I gained a lot from it, I
hated it. A couple of vignettes: it?s fall of my senior year, and as usual
it?s all rah-rah about beating Exeter. I had already spent one semester on
Posting and another on Probation, each of which has a story. It was the
peak of the draft-card burning era. To speed up the tale, I burn my ticket
to the Exeter game in front of my dorm-mates. One rushes to beat me up,
but he tries to kick me, so I grab his foot in midair and give it a twist,
dropping him on his head. No one else bothered me, but they all conspired to move my entire room into the bathroom. ?Management? never intervened.
So I stayed there for a week, until the house master told them to put it
all back. Later that year, I helped to found a student political union
that lasted for decades, I?m told. Later in life, when I moved back to the
mysterious East not too far from dear old Andover, I didn?t bother to even drive by the campus. I graduated cum laude, with honors in English, went on to Yale where I also carved my own path to cum laude with Honors in
Philosophy despite a notoriously profligate undergraduate career.
What nobody at Andover knew or cared to know, I wasn?t going to the stupid Exeter game because I was leaving campus to visit a family friend who was
shipping off to Nam the next day as a Navy Seal. Named Mark Catlin, for
the record - we lived not too far from the Catlins in Peru, Vermont. So
football seemed kinda silly.
Anyway, I wasn?t a typical Andover student, a pattern repeated at YU.
I read you compulsively. Don?t ever stop.
Jackson Hogen
_________________________________________
Your characterization of prep schools and those who attend them seems to be biased, at best. My experience is that many of the game-changers in society and business tend to be alums of those so- called "get along" and "group think" prep schools. If I gave you the list of those in my graduating class at Cranbrook, you would be amazed at what they have accomplished and achieved, and the impacts they have made in all areas of society.
And for the record, being the son of a school teacher and a homemaker, I attended Cranbrook on a scholarship. Interestingly, we were all equally inspired and challenged to become all we could be. Like anything else, however, what people do or don't do with their opportunities is up to them.
Cranbrook School
Bloomfield Hills, Michigan
Class of 1978
Mark C. Nordman
_________________________________________
Wow the preppies came out of the suburbans and escalades for that one!
Preppies ruined lacrosse for me in college. I was a very good lacrosse player and because I didn't fit into the prep school/frat boy mold - I was alone on a team. I remember the captain taking me aside and telling me not to run so fast in practice as I was making him look bad. After being threatened numerous times about what I had to bring to the parties (kegs and booze and I had literally no money) I was ostracized by the team. The coach couldn't figure out what was going on. I was the fastest kid on the team, was a playmaker and goal scorer and I would score a goal and the rest of team would ignore me, on the field, in a game.
And all of this is just over lacrosse! It was still a club that I clearly was not welcome in if I wasn't prepared to dumb it down and not try as hard.
Bobbo
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Sean Dookie proves your point(s)!?!?!
DOUG COLLETTE
_________________________________________
Here in the South, there's a fitting colloquialism that exposes those who say you're generalizing or simply have it wrong: A hit dog squeals.
Jon Sinton
_________________________________________
Sean Dookie is a cunt. Too guilty/insecure not to defend it.
Hugo Burnham
_________________________________________
Wow... Just wow... To see that 'white privilege' attitude so nakedly expressed by some of your readers (Sean Dookie, for example). Suggest to them for one moment that they might have had an unfair advantage in life and they immediately shout: "you're just jealous". Amazing... It's like you can spend so much money on a persons education and they still never really understand how to know themselves a little more moderately - or see themselves through the eyes of someone poor. I guess they never really need to. And there's the rub...
Thanks for quoting me, anyway.
All the best. I don't know how you put up with such arrogance and entitlement.
Adam Blake
_________________________________________
Sean Dookie is a fucking moron. I went to prep school and I come from the same background as you. I only got in because I played sports and financial aid. Dookie doesn't even realize he started life on third base while the rest of us were still in the dugout. Blinded by his privilege. Definition of an asshat.
Chris French
_________________________________________
"I went to school in New England too, know a lot of alums from many schools in the region. Trust me, I know Middlebury has turned out too many heads up their ass low self esteem under-achievers who loved to ski first and barely focus on academics.
Your writing skills and conventions suck in a most unsophisticated and unprofessional way.
Regards,
Charlie Williams
Deerfield, Illinois"
HA!
But you live in gorgeous California, and he lives in grisly Deerfield, Illinois. Not so 'head up your ass' therefore. I have lived in both places, and Deerfield has zero to recommend it. Possibly a negative number now I know this guy lives there.
Colby, Bowdoin and Middlebury are GREAT schools that care about the character of students they admit first. A former [30-year] Admissions Director at Colby is one of my daughter's dearest mentors, and revealed integrity to be their main lens when considering applications.
BTW my daughter is a freshman at Harvard, and many of her classmates applied to those specific schools, primarily to be in conversation with professors who care about transferring knowledge from one generation to another [yes, still relevant]. We are a non-Christian homeschool family from rural/central California doing school and family in a completely different way, and I was my daughter's college counselor. Believe me, most of the students at these schools are interchangeable now.
Chin up lad!
Johanna
_________________________________________
Sean Dookie… what a fitting surname
ADRIAN KELLY
_________________________________________
Wow Bob, you stirred up a can of worms with that piece!
I for one enjoy your odd delve into social/political comment, whilst loving your music missives too.
As one of your readers already said, the US private school system is based on the UK 'Public' (private) school system which feeds the creme de la creme into the university system and then oftentimes into the institutions of power.
I played the Oxford University Ball a while back-a prestige gig by any standards- and, for all the politicians' soundbytes about 'there is no class system any more on these shores' talking to and observing the undergrads there, my God Bob, go there and go see a living, breathing 'elite and those-below us' class system for yourself.
And I can honestly say this is not coming from any resentment or jealousy in me, as one of your readers suggested about you- more from a striking impression I observed passing through one night.
And, like America, these guys go on to run our country, or someone else's.
Kavanagh? Only a symptom, I'm afraid.
Best,
Mickey Wynne
Brighton,
England
_________________________________________
Just want to observe that while it may be true that "not all" (whoever: men, preppies, goldfish) do some horrible thing, that isn't really the point you're making. The point being that enough of a particular group do a thing -- and enough of the rest seem willing to allow it to happen -- that it might as well be all.
My father used to say it took fifty good ones to make up for one bad one. The question isn't whether "all" men or "all" prep school boys do it, but whether you beat the 50-to-1 ratio. Otherwise the perception will be that "all" of them do indeed do it. And perception is literally how we see the world.
Jim Lloyd
_________________________________________
I got kicked out.
Mt. Hermon in Massachusetts. Got the full "Good Will Hunting" treatment!
Jeff Lorber
_________________________________________
Love all the knee jerks here from folks not accustomed to having a finger pointed their way (or perhaps raised, for that matter). Sean Dookie sounds like a grade-A asshole.
Bob Kalill
_________________________________________
Sean Dookie needs to be cast in the remake of Some Kind of Wonderful
Mark Burrell
_________________________________________
I think I'm more surprised at the rebuttals and responses - the negative and contradictory ones.
I went to public school and state college. That world was unknown to me for a long time.
But I teach (music) at a very high end L.A. prep and damn if you aren't just dead on it. Of course there are many kids attending that are conscientious and caring students as well human beings but man there are a lot that aren't and I can tell you that in those cases, the acorn does not fall far from the tree.
Thanks! Ken Lasaine
_________________________________________
You should thank the ever so entitled Sean Dookie for proving your point!
Laurie Gelfand
_________________________________________
That's a weak generalization that you made. Perhaps it was the case a few decades ago but nowadays not as much. Further, the point you made about breakthroughs rarely coming from preps is also false. Many social, technological, and humanitarian breakthroughs have come from prep educated individuals such as Obama, Bezos, Bill Gates, Zuckerberg, Evan Spiegel just to name a few.
M T
_________________________________________
Who the hell is entitled asshole, Sean Dookie?
No one wants to be that miserable dude!
jc richardson
_________________________________________
Re Sean Dookie... Bob i'd really love to run into that guy Sean in a dark alley somewhere. It's not the hitting the family lottery jackpot that bugs us regular folks. It's that fucking arrogance that he showed us in his response to you. It's the smugness even though he's done nothing amazing for the life of luxury that he and his peers enjoy.
That's what's irritating
Johnny Vieira
_________________________________________
RE: Prep school.
As my mother always said, "Who has more fun than poor people?"
Sincerely,
Jay Aymar
_________________________________________
"Weak people harbor general opinion on people based on their general background. "
Given that's a general opinion on people based on your general background...what conclusion am I supposed to draw about you?
It's as mindless as if I said those who were born into opportunity take personal credit for their success.
Not all do. Some recognize, with gratitude, when they receive an incredible gift. It may be a high IQ, it may be trust fund, it may be a truly loving family, or being put in a unique position to help others.
It doesn't matter what life you were born into...we are all involuntary players in genetic roulette. What matters is what you do with what you were given.
Craig Anderton
_________________________________________
Of course we all want what is best for our kids, give them a leg up whenever possible, and if we have means we will use it for them. I get that. What does bother me is the idea that because you were born on third base, the world is God given to you and therefore you can use that advantage to be despicable if it serves you, where those who didn't win the DNA lottery are just not allowed. Even more so, they are to be kept out of the club at all costs. Aren't we Americans supposed to be better? Weren't we supposed to walk away from those old European class structures kept in place by ancient aristocracy and religion? Yeah, it's all still there, we just bamboozle the little people with different myths and stories.
Christian Swain
_________________________________________
As late as the mid-60's, New Jersey's PUBLIC TAXPAYER-SUPPORTED STATE UNIVERSITY, Rutgers, was ONLY FOR BOYS. New Jersey girls were shunted to the teachers colleges, or for a lucky few, to DOUGLASS, "the woman's college of Rutgers." We Douglass girls called our school "the eighth sister", after the seven female 'ivies'. We were wrong, of course. We were NOT upper-class. We were just the 500 smartest Jersey girls of any given year. Princeton, a short drive away, WAS emphatically an Ivy, and the boys would come up to New Brunswick on weekends, slumming, confident of lays from girl's presumably dazzled by their preptitude. Creeped me out. Assholes. That said, I married a guy from Brown, and then a guy from Harvard. But one was from Union City, NJ and the other was Jewish....
btw, the cure for these prep jerks is to replace everyone, everywhere, with a smart woman.
Paula Franceschi
_________________________________________
Wow! Bob......
Mister 'Dookie' couldn't have said it better!... it's like you sprung a trap for the guy! I'm laughing out loud.
Now, I don't know too much to argue or to judge......but in this guy's little smackdown of your prep email, he's as translucent as wax paper....... (ain't much light getting through there!)
Quote - "We don't offer up looks into our home life/ we already have it In circles that matter in where we want to go in life"......(ain't that special!)
Quote.... "weak people blame others" .....this is when I knew his deal was sealed! Welcome to the jungle, Spaulding!.....Don't puke in the Beemer!
Mister Privilege, keep this in mind, when life throws you a curve -
Ah, you've been with the professors and they've all liked your looks
With great lawyers you have discussed lepers and crooks
You've been through all of F. Scott Fitzgerald's books
You're very well-read, it's well-known
But something is happening here and you don't know what it is.........Do you, Mr. Jones?
Steve Chrismar
PS. Bob, please don't tell me that this letter from Dookie was a plant?!
_________________________________________
Hi Bob,
So let me give you another take on prep schools. Speaking as someone who went to Phillips Exeter in NH for a year between high school and Middlebury and who sent all three of our children to prep school.
The number one difference as I see it is the quality of the education. I realized that day one when I attended Exeter. I was not a dumb kid, mostly A's in high school and good SAT's. Then I got into my Exeter classes. I was so far behind it wasn't funny. They had to put me in classes for sophomores in math and Spanish. But what I realized was how much more enjoyable learning was from excellent teachers. Here were some of the best high school teachers in the country and I couldn't get over how much better they were than my public high school. Creative, fun to be with but hard and fair. Night and day between what I'd been through in Natick, MA.
So when my oldest son was floundering in public high school he wanted to go to a prep school. He picked Middlesex in Concord MA and it was the same scenario. A group of outstanding teachers making classes fun and rigorous. My pet peeve with public schools is kids come out not knowing how to write. The difference is essays between a senior at Middlesex and a very good public high school is scary. As if the difference in their ability to think critically. Again, night and day between Middlesex and Clifton Park, NY for someone like my son who was an average student at best.
Here some other things kids at prep schools learn. Actions count. You make a bad decision you pay for it, you're held accountable. All the prep schools I know hold the kids to two strikes. Once you break the rules you're on probation, break them again and you're out. I've seen very rich kids booted out of Middlesex, doesn't make any difference how much money Daddy has. And all three of my kids learned quickly that money doesn't make you happy. They saw a number of unhappy kids in prep school whose parents had more money than God. And it didn't help them at all. Good lesson to learn. And last and I think this is something you've picked up on. Kids from good prep schools are not intimidated by anyone. They know they're smart and can think as well as an adult, they just don't have the life experiences. But they'll get those and they know it. So you can't bullshit them for the most part. They'll look you in the eye and question you and if you don't have your shit together they'll know your winging it and won't respect you. What they do respect is honesty and smarts with some humility thrown in when you don't know what you're taking about. That I think is what you saw at Middlebury.
Last I'm sorry to hear you "didn't learn anything in the classroom" at Middlebury. I was as impressed with some of the teachers at Middlebury as I was at Exeter. Some were truly outstanding and to this day I remember the joy of sitting in their classes learning about architecture, geography and history. Wonderful, wonderful classes. I'd go again in a heartbeat. Just for the experience of learning something new.
Bob Hamilton
Phillips Exeter '71
Middlebury '75
_________________________________________
When I graduated Culver Military Academy in 1967( now Culver Academies, with 500 girls, half), there were only 13 girl students, faculty daughters. A school that was ranked in the same category as Andover and Exeter, with larger endowments and facilities, teachings strong traditions of secular educations including traditions of honor and good behavior, still allowed if not condoned an atmosphere where it was accepted for the cadets to howl, hoot and shout obscenities when the co- eds arrived at the school auditorium to sit in the last row to watch the Saturday night movie every week. They learned to arrive after the lights went down.
The boys club, footplayer worship times of the mid 60's are when men like Kavanaugh, Huffington, who graduated Culver in 1965 and many like them, flourished, knowing from high school the high stature and power in society they would inherit. There was always an aspect of violence to it. Fooootball.......
I had heard some of the coeds were bitter and injured but refused to speak publicly about it. At our 50th last year I brought it up, thought apologies were in order but got no traction, from either side. The men thought the coeds had been treated well.
Those prepies from back then now rule the world, just as they planned .
Jeffrey Bauman
Wendell, MA
_________________________________________
Very Impressive the privileged, white, angry, angst you elicited. I don't know if you are right. But wow, you upset people. It likely is a sweeping over generalization but... you offended these sensitive people and they lashed out.
I came from upper middle Class, Midwest privilege. I feel lucky. I like to read what you write. God's Peace!
mab
Michael A Becker
St. Louis
_________________________________________
I don't envy Sean Dookie; I feel sorry for his pampered, privileged ass. I knew his kind at boarding school; as part of a protected class, he can never know real achievement, and in truth, he's the one jealous of you and he knows this in his bones, even while he protests too much. You hit a nerve; why else would he feel compelled to post?
Mojo Bone
_________________________________________
Re: Sean Dookie
...OMG poor little rich boy, cry me a river on how you've endured the bigotry of wealth.
I grew up middle class but my dad was poor and my mother's family came from money. My mother went to prep school in Switzerland and lived a life of privilege until she married my dad and in many ways they cut her out for marrying beneath her social status. There are people on my mom's side of our family that I love and respect but man I have never seen a more screwed up, paranoid group of people in my life, except for maybe my ex wife's family.
My ex wife comes from money, She went to prep school in Carmel with Aaron Hagar (nice guy actually, there's always an exception), Paul Anka's kids among others. From what I can tell it didn't do her much good other than turn her into a hypocrite and a snob which was a constant point of contention between us when we were married. I hated the way she talked to people that she thought were beneath her. I know it's stereotypical to say this but the way she talked to wait staff in restaurants and hotels was cringe worthy.
She insisted that our son start at Sacred Heart in Atherton for pre-K; Every parent wants their kids to get a leg up in life but $2500 a month for pre-k? totally ridiculous! I can't even elaborate further or smoke will start coming out the top of my head and my hair might catch on fire. Her dad is a total right wing elitist who counts among is associates Bill O'Reilly and Newt Gingrich; you just want to punch him in the face to shut him the fuck up if you ever have the displeasure of meeting him. But if you do he'll surely give you an unsolicited copy of his book Integrity Matters. This guy is the antithesis of integrity, for starters he speaks to is wife like he bought her at a slave auction in Saudi Arabia, I'm surprised he doesn't make her wear a burka. He's a joke and now in his later years he's become a caricature of what he represents. He's sad and Pathetic like O'Reilly and Gingrich, the perfect example of what would happen if a used car salesman mated with a tele-evangelist; Interesting only as an anthropological study but no good to society.
Elites, especially on the far right think everyone is out to get them and they're the victims. Meanwhile everything they do is either oppressing or patronizing anyone they deem lower on the social or moral ladder. They're big on RULES and MORALITY (be especially scared if they bring god into the conversation) but rules apply to everyone but them! Finally if you cross them they show no mercy and will litigate you until you're living in a tent on the side of the road somewhere. Don't bother to beg for mercy, they'll show none.
I'm not against people born into money, I just don't like hypocrites and assholes of which many born into money are unfortunately. Everything I have in life I earned working from the bottom up which is tough but it builds character and the ability to see things from a broad perspective; unlike my prep school counterparts of which many have a view of life that doesn't go beyond their prep school upbringing and their narrow minded social circles. I just pray that I have enough influence over my son that he doesn't grow up to be like this rich idiot that responded to your article. Time will tell…
Mikael Johnston
_________________________________________
If you ever send one of my reply's I hope this is the one . I have read you for years and I think your readers will enjoy my shout out to Boarding school
I went to Fountain valley in Colorado Springs after ten years at Gilman in Baltimore. Bob Weir of the Grateful Dead and John Perry Barlow who just wrote Mother American Night were several grades above me . John Perry was one of the most amazing lives of anyone who ever lived . He was a cowpoke , wrote 30 songs for the Dead, and managed Dick Cheney's run for Senator before he found his passion and became a major tech guru . Read the Book -Bob Lefsetz you will love this guy. Barley passed at 70 last year. Mountain Girls' tribute to him is on YouTube !!! He had two fabulous chapters on our high school Fountain Valley . He said it was place for intractable and highly intelligent kids . Meaning smart rich kids whose parents could not handle them. I took STP (strong acid) before I had even smoked pot in 9th grade and fortunately loved flying through space while lying in my dorm room bed . Not everyone prospered at Fountain Valley but I did it turned me around and I became a better person.
The highly ranked prep school Gilman I went to in Baltimore took two years of Latin to get to Caesar . Fountain Valley did it in one year . I told FVS I was struggling at Gilman because I did not like Algebra (also was not getting along with mama and papa bear). They started a new course in Symbolic Logic because they knew I and others could learn algebraic functions if you used words which I liked better than numbers . All men are mortal . Socrates is a man . Socrates is mortal . Called an anatomical syllogism instead of a math formula.
Weir got kicked out for drugs and came back a few years ago and the FVS Headmaster told Bob he should thank FVS for kicking him out or he would never have joined the Dead . That took balls for the Headmaster but Weir wrote them a very big check for their performing arts program .
I left FVS because my dad went broke. I graduated from public school in 1970 during race riots in Baltimore . I got the " big 3 High School tour" and I liked all three schools. I disagree with some other posts and the stereotype of prep schoolers. Being rich can be a burden psychologically and promote apathy and I guess some type of insecure snobbery , but the truth is that type of person can come from any socio economic background . Excuses are for losers . Being lazy or blaming others is not a platform to build on for anyone rich or poor. I am an ex-hippie jock with a dose of Ayn Rand logic I got while reading Atlas Shrugged in my freshman year in college.
It was not the Ivy league Bullshit that made prep school great . Because on some levels it had many problems like any other institution. What made it excellent was the one on one attention and Fastrack learning that put some of us into better space to compete in the marketplace of life . Gates and Zuckerberg were gone from school by sophomore year in College. The promise of America still exists read Mother American Night. Cheers and thanks for all your great posts Bob.
Blake Goldsmith
_________________________________________
Wow, the white & privileged do come out to "speak up", don't they! I love the guy who said "my classmates are all doctors, lawyers, MBAs ... " ya know "average Americans"! Hahahahahaha!! The incredible blindness of privilege allows this person to tell himself, and his children, that the "average American" is a doctor or lawyer, when in fact, the average American is in debt and makes $40k a year or LESS!!!
#1 most common job in America is RETAIL
247wallst.com/special-report/2014/04/24/americas-most-and-least-common-jobs/2/
What a fucking joke these people are!! THEY are why people who voted for Obama in 08, then voted for Trump in '16. It's a double-headed dragon - they defend their ilk, even if racist/rapist/whatever, but they decry the "deplorables" and "trump voters" and act all fucking baffled and ring their hands!
Truck Driver is #1 job in most red states:
www.npr.org/sections/money/2015/02/05/382664837/map-the-most-common-job-in-every-state
Sure, be careful not too over generalize, but I got your point. It's clear you weren't saying every prep-school kid was bad. I got it. But, those for whom your piece cuts too close to home ... wow, they have yet to reflect on their own privilege, despite all that has been going on! PEOPLE! You don't need to defend yourself. You'll be fine. Your guilt, no matter how deep, won't take away your nice house and your children's safe, comfortable "walkable" neighborhood. It's OKAY! Admitting that, yes, you were privileged won't take away the comforts of your life, won't take away that privilege. Admitting the truth just means SEEING what is around you, ACKNOWLEDGING the damage done by your community - even if you didn't inflict the damage yourself, you are/were part of that community.
This is the crazy/sad thing about defending oneself against criticism of ones abuse of power. The very defense of that abuse is continued abuse. Just ACCEPT the truth and stop trying to silence - even if it feels uncomfortable.
The rest of our society deals with pain, uncomfortableness, and, actually, great suffering ALL THE TIME! It's so normal, that we are often numb. YOU couldn't handle the shit we deal with on a daily basis.
"The U.S Bureau of the Census has the annual real median personal income at $31,099 in 2016."
—And the prep-school kids?
"In 2005 roughly half of all those with graduate degrees were among the nation's top 15% of income earners."- en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_income_in_the_United_States
"Thus, while the population as a whole is proceeding further in formal educational programs, income and educational attainment remain highly correlated." - en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Educational_attainment_in_the_United_States (my emphasis added.)
"Average Joe" on Wikipedia
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Average_Joe
So, let's be optimistic and say the average American makes $35k a year - here's what living on that looks like, if you want to own a house have health insurance and send your kid to college:
Average Yearly Expenses Total:
average American mortgage payment:
$12,000
Health insurance
$9500
Student loan payment:
$3300
Food
$7000
Clothing
$1000
Transportation (car payment, gas)
$6000 - $9000
www.usatoday.com/story/money/personalfinance/2016/06/18/pete-planner-503-avg-car-payment-too-rich-most-us/85493088/
Average American Budget:
www.google.com/amp/s/www.marketwatch.com/amp/story/guid/943E4C00-DABD-11E7-84D1-444A4DEE5340
Food and clothes are cheap, but housing is more expensive. Thus, Americans are MORE financially insecure than ever.
And, sorry, but the "average American" is NOT a doctor, lawyer, or public servant.
#1 most common job in America is retail
247wallst.com/special-report/2014/04/24/americas-most-and-least-common-jobs/2/
Truck Driver is #1 job in most red states:
www.npr.org/sections/money/2015/02/05/382664837/map-the-most-common-job-in-every-state
Sarah Fridrich
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