PP, what you're advocating is essentially backdoor state socialism. We already have this to a certain extent, so I'm not trying to demonize it. I'm just calling it what it is. Increasing the tax burden on the wealthy and using it to increase economic equality through various programs is, at the extreme, functionally equivalent to state socialism. Personally, I believe we should reduce the socialist character that we already have. Not eliminate it, just reduce it.

Mobster pointed out the fact that the education system is lacking interested students, more than funding. If every school system had sufficient funding, a student that shows up not interested in learning still won't learn. The reason we have the level of poverty we do is due to children not being given the drive to attempt success by their parents.

Say what you want about our education system, but for the most part if a student tries to, they will graduate. If a student tries to and has the talent to deserve them he will get good grades. If he has a diploma he will be accepted to college, it doesn't have to be a big college. The one I went to for my first two years accepts all HS graduates. You can pay for tuition at one of these colleges with a job attainable with a HS diploma.

It might take work and time, but there is no single person with the intelligence to do so that does not have the economic opportunity to receive the level of education that they want. For that matter, if you really don't think they can afford college, there is always the army and the GI Bill. I used that for my last few years of college, and they've vastly improved it since. Spend 2 years in the army and you've got damned near to the equivalent of a full ride scholarship to the most expensive in state public college.