No. You were a clever guy who fell on hard times. That's quite different from someone who is destined to be a low income worker for life due to early events t

No. You were a clever guy who fell on hard times. That's quite different from someone who is destined to be a low income worker for life due to early events they can never recover from, whether their own fault or not. That foundational education you received stays, whether good or bad. Having said that, yes it is an educational problem, but it's also the randomness of life events. Families breakdown without notice and without a childs control, lives end, jobs are lost, shit happens just like good things happen too. Some people get a string of bad events, others a string of good events. Don't look down on their lack of skills, you had the ability to comprehend them, they didn't, maybe you had access to facilities and the time to learn, maybe they didn't. In the end, who knows what the true reasons are, just do what you can to help a fellow out and enjoy your good fortune if that's how things turned out, but try not to judge and over simplify an exceedingly complex problem with one step solutions (although I agree, good education works).