Going into adulthood from poverty means realizing we're set up to fail and you're going to have to REALLY want to make it out

I wish somebody would have told us about becoming an adult who comes from nothing. The less of a safety net you have, the more vulnerable you are. Yet the more hoops you will have to go through to become successful. From personal experiences as a first generation student with a deadbeat dad and a mom who isn't alive anymore. Navigating the system of upper education is just made me realize like it is set up for us to fail and it's set up to weed out the people who don't want it bad enough. We're already four steps behind the people who had parents that went to college, grandparents, great grandparents and all siblings that went to college because they know the ropes. The ins and outs, fast foot, application, who to reach out to if you need help. And for us, all we have is the internet. Like I had to look up every single thing because there's not just one manual. There's so many different things you have to learn in this process. We're also vulnerable in the way that if school doesn't work out for us, we are now back to square one of being poor with a mountain of debt. Or somebody who goes for a semester on their parents' dime, fails, comes back home, they're back to square one in their parents' house, no money lost. Me personally, I've seen a lot of people go to college treated like daycare because it's not on their dime. The worst that happens is they fail, they go back to their safety net. We do not have that. For first generation students, it's all or nothing.