So, I'm decently smart and from a low-income family. Library card growing up, excelled in public school, got accepted into MIT and some other high-end schools with at least partial scholarships...but I would be on my own for living expenses, in pricey New England so that was out.
I ended up at a state school, full ride, and working fulltime to pay for living & ongoing medical expenses. Went on to an assistantship and grad school, where a bookkeeping error by the uni wiped my financial reserves and I had 2 months in a row on $25 worth of food.

After that I yielded. Took my degree and got a grunt tech job, embraced the joy of being able to afford middle-class living, and fully aware how lucky I was to do so (esp around 2008). Just another anecdote, but many kids in my honors classes back in high school, those that were wealthy went on to get PhDs, professorships, etc. I'm not salty about it -- I've got a good life, I can see the possibility of retirement which no one in my family will ever get...but i wonder which of my ideas would've panned out if I'd had 8+ hours a day to work on them instead of grind out a 9-5 then basic life maintenance afterwards.

And I should add -- if the US Tax bill goes ahead and makes Assistantship tuition waivers taxable, then fuck this country. I may not be building the AI toolsets I was working on in grad school, but I am still building shit for F500 companies that provably generate revenue. Dunno that anyone would've hired me to do that shit if I hadn't gotten some graduate work and an undergrad degree.

The system strangles itself and the Great Filter cometh.

Being poor has always sucked.