That was sort of my experience. I grew up in poverty and stayed in poverty until I was almost 25 years old because I didn't know any better. My parents didn't d

That was sort of my experience. I grew up in poverty and stayed in poverty until I was almost 25 years old because I didn't know any better. My parents didn't distrust institutions. Instead, they mocked things they couldn't afford, so I grew up thinking college was a "stupid waste of time and money" and unimportant. For me, the things that broke me out of my family's cycle of poverty were a public library, a love of reading, and a determination to learn a valuable skill that people would be willing to pay me for. I read everything from medical journals to books on auto mechanics to baking. I was willing to do anything to make more than the $5.85 an hour I was, at the time, raising my family on. Eventually, I picked up a copy of "Sam's Teach Yourself C Programming," which was weird, since I didn't know what C was and didn't own a computer. But, for some reason, the book clicked. I kept reading and studying programming books from the library and eventually got my first programming job with Intel. In my case, the public library was the key to breaking the poverty cycle, not just for me, but for my children as well. I eventually got a college degree in my early 40s and graduated with a 4.0 GPA. I don't think I could have done that in my 20s though, due to the way I was raised. I had to get there via another route; the public library. Because of the benefit they've been to my life, I love public libraries and recommend them to anybody wanting to improve their current situation. I'm sure there are other resources available too. That's just the one that worked for me.