maybe we should come to a consensus on what actually is "success"..is success fame, independance, business owner, finacnial stability?

Again I was born in the "hood" south side of Chicago, me and a number of my childhood friends grew up to become successful. None of us are famous but of the ones I still keep in touch with..all but one of us have college degrees and two of us has masters...All but one has a good jobs (he quit his and went back to school) and one is a successful business owner. Most of the success stories from the "ghetto" are stories such as those. Not famous but successful none the less.

Maybe that is one of the problems..a lot of people from the hood don't tend to view the above situations as being a success so they fail to see it when it is actually more common than scarce.

No money isn't everything (if I thought it was would I have chosen teaching as a career?) but it is important....but there is also a wide range of possibilities in between poor and wealthy.