I guess my history is almost opposite while achieving similar results. However, I get bunched in the same group and expected to feel privileged and guilty.

I grew up in another country and went to end of junior + high school in a US school in the inner city where nobody studied in my class except for me. 65% of the class never graduated. My parents, although very educated in our home country never paid for school and worked very bad jobs initially here such as postal service worker and person who poses census questions.

Although I never did particularly well in school in my home country, I did extremely well in the US because everyone else wasn't doing anything. I was ranked 10th in a graduating class of 900 students and did well on the SATs except for the English section. However, I got into many fights to protect my image in school or things would have gotten worse for me there. This resulted in not being able to get into decent colleges since for whatever reason that is reflected on your "record".

Finally, this apathetic behavior of my classmates and friends transformed me a little and i did poorly first couple of years of college. However, impending struggles with job market made me get back to studying. I took more loans to pay for my undergrad + masters and graduated with a decent GPA + research. Then got a job in software and now almost finished paying off loans.

Let me describe what high school life is like in inner city public high schools:

People growing up in inner cities are treated like animals in the cafeteria and elsewhere. There are police officers with guns. There are literal metal bars on the windows and only plastic utensils are allowed in cafeteria. Fights happen where everyone jumps on the tables and cheers on. There are metal chains on doors for students not to escape midway during school day. There are metal detectors at the entrance in case students bring guns. You can go to the bathroom during class only 5 times in 6 months. You are taught how to add fractions in grade 10 math class. Guidance counselors never help you and always try to do the least amount of work possible. I had to talk to the principal to make them let me take a math test to test out of elementary school math. Had to switch math classes to get a math teacher to let me go to a math olympiad.

The experience for me closely matched what American movies would show prisons are like. The students themselves think "nerds" are incredibly uncool and the coolest people are rappers + sports stars. I think median amount of time people spent doing homework there is about 0 seconds. Almost everyone constantly talks during class and you can barely hear the teacher.

After escaping this circus, I'm expected to feel sympathy for some of the people who were my classmates.

So while I still think I got lucky in terms of intelligence, the solution to this problem is to change the culture. For example, in my old country, there is literally no commonly used word for "nerds" and people who get good grades are considered cool.

Additionally, going to college for vast majority of students especially those who come from high schools like mine is a waste of time. There should be trade schools. There should be a major high school reform. People who act like prisoners should be put in some sort of boarding school so they stop poisoning the well for others. People who participate in a fight by the virtue of being attacked by others shouldn't get detentions. It should be explained to their parents that this behavior is completely not OK. Media should stop idolizing singers + sports players. In fact, MTV programming should be completely remade into a subtle pro-education propaganda channel. Cancer like Jerry Springer et al should be canceled.

It is totally possible to graduate from these high schools and do well.

The problem is not money, but culture. Privilege has _nothing_ to do with it since tons of people in much much poorer countries with schools that have a lot fewer funds do a lot better.

I feel like most people don't understand what American education/school culture is really like in inner cities and what students are really like who go there. Here are a couple of movies that somewhat match my experience:

The Class (2008) - French film but similar (milder) situation.

Kids (1995) - Very accurate but little to do with education.