"If you're so smart, why ain't you rich?"

A legitimate question to ask economists. Otherwise, nsm.

In my family's case, education meant moving away from physical labor. Farmers, machinist, housekeeper. Oh, and a math teacher, but she was also a farmer. For my parents, an education was a heavily pushed way "up." When my dad was between post-docs, they had a couple months of unemployment where they lived with their parents. And despite education being really foisted on them, my machinist grandfather could not comprehend that it was ok for dad to be unemployed, that this was just the nature of postdocing in that era and field. Go out and get a job already. If you don't, there is something wrong with you! Lazy bum!

In my generation, we've got people with multiple degrees running brokely around and that's just what it is. But for the couple of cousins who didn't pursue higher ed, I think it took longer for that to sit comfortably, sadly (and dude, they probably make more than the average of us.)

I actually think there's something in the luxury to choose a profession for reasons other than maximum earning potential that speaks to being upper class. A liberal arts degree is "higher class" than an engineering degree, because it's so impractical. To me.

Maybe my head is too full of impoverished gentility.

I'm the poor relation in my family.

My extended family has a hard time reconciling that I had almost the most expensive education amongst us and when you factor earrings and cost of living live near the bottom of the bunch.

I actually think there's something in the luxury to choose a profession for reasons other than maximum earning potential that speaks to being upper class.

But if it's a luxury, doesn't that imply that you don't have to work for a living because you're already rich?

But if it's a luxury, doesn't that imply that you don't have to work for a living because you're already rich?

Not really. I have a useless liberal arts degree and make half of what my friends do because I work in nonprofits. I don't think my income makes me lower class than them, in the same way I don't think my one friend's "practical" degree makes her lower class.

Edit: my point being something about the two things balancing out or some shit. And me not being rich, but feeling I can afford this "luxury."

I can't work out how some of my family members are so flush. As I learn more about money, I wonder if they can really be earning that much, or have some credit arrangement magic I don't yet understand.

My immediate family fakes high class pretty well. Despite not having indoor plumbing as a kid, my dad was born to it, and rose to it.

. A liberal arts degree is "higher class" than an engineering degree, because it's so impractical.

It all depends on where you sit. My paternal grandfather was the first person in his family to go to college. All his life, his brothers and parents thought he was crazy, because they made a hell of a lot more money on the railroad than he ever made teaching high school.

Wait, I think I've got it -- I think I'm higher-class than my income would say. At least in NYC. For the country, my income is still pretty high.