"Only" able to afford two years? A four year university in my home state is $20,000/year. Going out of state to almost anywhere is even more expensive (califor

"Only" able to afford two years? A four year university in my home state is $20,000/year. Going out of state to almost anywhere is even more expensive (california is up to nearly $40,000/year), and if you do find somewhere cheaper, you need the savings for a move, which is difficult at the poverty level. Many colleges are completely unaffordable, even working full time jobs: "The current federal minimum wage is $7.25 per hour. If a minimum wage worker is employed full-time (forty hours per week for 52 weeks), that worker would earn $15,080 annually." http://poverty.ucdavis.edu/faq/what-are-annual-earnings-full-time-minimum-wage-worker http://poverty.ucdavis.edu/faq/what-are-annual-earnings-full... And that's IF you can find full time work, which is difficult in many areas. I had to live off of half that for several years because I couldn't find anything better for a long while. If I went to a community college, they'd only give me $900/quarter in student loans when the cost was more like $1500/quarter for tuition. So, I couldn't afford community college either, for quite a while. It was only once I was working 35-60 hours a week (it was a fulltime job, but weird work schedule) that I was able to afford to both not be homeless and attend community college. As a result, it took about six years to get even my associate's degree (between the waiting and the working). There are a lot of barriers. I think a lot of people on HN don't realize how rough it is out there for low income people right now.