The GP suggested that the reason immigrants have succeeded is because they knew to learn to open a bank account, ergo, if people in poverty wanted to learn to open a bank account then they would escape poverty. My point is that is not the reason immigrants are so often successful: rather, immigrants succeed because their entire life is built around seeking out something better for themselves and their family, and they're taking risks and making sacrifices to get it. Education is a means to an end for immigrants looking to build a better life for themselves, it's not the reason they've succeeded. Many immigrants succeed without education!
What predicts high school graduation? The framing of your comment ("did you graduate..." "did you wait for marriage...") suggests that these are choices made by people which determine whether they'll go on to live in poverty and if they just stayed in school and just didn't have kids then their lives would be great. The problem is, poverty does not start with the individual, in fact, it can be traced to before the person was born. High school graduation rates can be predicted based on the circumstance the child was born into.
> if they just stayed in school and just didn't have kids then their lives would be great
Yes, that's literally what they need to do. If we want to change that, then changing their culture to value education is the only way to do it. No culture which denigrates education is going to equip the majority of its adherents for the modern world.
Edit: I feel you're saying the same thing. Said poor immigrants succeed because they value succeeding. That's culture.
What predicts high school graduation? The framing of your comment ("did you graduate..." "did you wait for marriage...") suggests that these are choices made by people which determine whether they'll go on to live in poverty and if they just stayed in school and just didn't have kids then their lives would be great. The problem is, poverty does not start with the individual, in fact, it can be traced to before the person was born. High school graduation rates can be predicted based on the circumstance the child was born into.