Off the top of my head and without doing any research:
Thomas Edison
Steve Jobs
Rush Limbaugh
And Bill Gates proves my point to T: He dropped out to make billions of dollars. I would think that's conclusive proof that formal education is not necessary for success.
I'm not now, obviously, but I hope to one day make a living writing and doing films. If I do succeed, it will have been entirely through my own efforts, not because I went to a school that taught me how to be a writer. (In fact, I'd say my 16 years of schooling was mostly wasted time.)
I expect Steve is going to grow Escape Artists in to a decent business. Did the state offer him a podcasting school? No: He decided what he wanted to accomplish and started working.
It's pretty pitiful that you had to go back to someone who died before the 20th century even started. I'm going to go out on a limb and say that America was a little different in
Edison's time. Also Edison's dad had a decent job with the railroads. In that time if you were poor and couldn't shoot your own food, you died.
Jobs was adopted into a middle class family. The poor don't get to adopt kids they aren't related to already.
Limbaugh's father was a lawyer. And Limbaugh isn't a billionaire
Middle class isn't poor.
Poor is not knowing if you're going to eat every day. Poor means not being able to afford to go stay in a motel for a few nights, because the drug dealer next door started threatening you. Ask Steve if he's poor. Or if he would be living his current lifestyle without having gone to college.
You want to know what being poor is? Go to a crap used car lot and borrow a mid 80's beater, one with dented fenders and primer paint. Then go to the nicest neighborhood in your area, someplace where the houses start at over 750k. Then drive down the street like you're thinking of buying something in the area and just wanted to see what these houses look like. Stop for a minute in front of some and really look. The cops will be there to tell you to get out within 10 minutes of when the first person sees you. Mention to the cop that you have every right to be there and he'll tell you it doesn't matter, MOVE IT!!
I never said people couldn't move up and down the ladder. I didn't even say a poor person couldn't move up and down the ladder. I said they don't get the same chance. It's a lot harder for them.
Your story is very interesting, but that is what is called
anecdotal evidence. And it does not support the statistics. When someone starts with anecdotal evidence, you know their arguement isn't worth crap. How many times have you heard, "My (insert relative here) smoked all his life and he lived to be 90"?