Insurance Policy

A big class divide these days is between those who had family members who could help them and those who didn't. Lots of people who didn't get a lot of financial help from their families - they didn't, for example, borrow $20K from them - are unaware that the fact that family help was potentially available, whether or not they used much of it, always provided a little insurance policy for them, a little backstop. And of course it's the case that, generally, such families did help. A hundred bucks here, a car insurance payment there, an overnight loan covering the tuition, etc. Even if it doesn't add up to much overall it's the difference between treading water and drowning, between having to quit school and not.