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Comment by bluedino | Hacker News Reader

The kids you grew up with or were friends in school with highly impact this as well.

Friends with the weird kid that just ate his boogers all day? You guys are probably working at McDonalds together. Hang around the stoners that never got their acts together? You might have ended up the same way.

But if you hung out with the kid who went to college? You might have decided to go to the same college and maybe got an internship as his dad's company. Maybe his name was Steve, and you guys took a shared love for electronics and started your own company.

So think about this when you decide to buy a house, if you have kids. Your kids neighbors might be the biggest influence on the rest of their lives. Imagine if you had grown up one town over, or on the other side of the tracks, but didn't because your mom liked the kitchen layout in the house you grew up in.

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> So think about this when you decide to buy a house, if you have kids. Your kids neighbors might be the biggest influence on the rest of their lives. Imagine if you had grown up one town over, or on the other side of the tracks, but didn't because your mom liked the kitchen layout in the house you grew up in.

That is probably true. Which means that segregation likeley is a rational choice for the individual. If you are a rich person you should live in an affluent area and not in a project (ghetto) because you might be damaging your childrens' future prospects. Rich hippie parents who choose to live among the poor are statistically speaking not doing their children any favor...

Makes me think that it should be government policy everywhere to ensure neighborhoods are as mixed as possible. Easier said than done, because if you live in an affluent area you'll probably fight very hard to keep it affluent and the poor people away.

> Makes me think that it should be government policy everywhere to ensure neighborhoods are as mixed as possible. Easier said than done, because if you live in an affluent area you'll probably fight very hard to keep it affluent and the poor people away.

They tried busing, which is kinda like that but just for schools. My understanding is it was pretty effective, but also wildly unpopular (and not just among the well-off) and the actually-rich were already in private prep schools anyway so didn't have to participate, while those of moderate means could afford to switch to parochial schools, lower-end private schools, or to move out of cities (all three happened, a lot).

There is a saying that a person is the average of the 5 closest people to them. We could certainly argue cause and effect, but when I look back over my life to date it does hold true. I was very fortunate to meet people who worked hard, understood how to be successful, and are successful today.

One addition to the above that came along with technology is the podcast. The long form provided by a podcast lets someone partially add another person to their average for better or worse.

> The kids you grew up with or were friends in school with highly impact this as well.

Unlike your claim, Gates’abot where you are born (on the broad scale he refers to) is supported by data.

> Friends with the weird kid that just ate his boogers all day? You guys are probably working at McDonalds together.

Sure, who you are friends with is correlated with the same socioeconomic background factors that are known to be tied to economic outcomes.

OTOH, the claim that it is an additional influence that works in a predominantly attractive way such that friend-groups will usually vary from the average based on other predictors in the same direction is...well, a common speculation, but where's the data?

> but didn't because your mom liked the kitchen layout in the house you grew up in

Not sure what is the situation in other countries/cities, but for all places that I have lived there is usually a 7 figure $ price tag difference on top of the mentioned kitchen layout as well.

The difference may have been smaller 30 or 40 years ago. With the internet and easy access to data, along with widening income/wealth gaps, the differences are more pronounced now.

I know exactly what you mean- but is it easy for a kid to make a change? I fell in with certain groups and left others as we either shared an affinity for things or had very different values. There were some groups or friends where I put up with differences as I really wanted to be part of the group, but there were many that just weren't open to me due to my interests and sensibilities. How much I could have changed those things which were already a construct of my upbringing, background, social conditioning etc. I do not know.

I guess what I am saying it, why did person X end up being friends with the booger eater and not the chess team?

I'll be interested to see how much I can shape the direction and range of my kids friends - but I doubt they'll listen ;)

To the extent that one can affect it, I think it has more to do with selecting the entire friend pool, not picking individual friends (which obviously won't work).

The friend pool at Phillips Exeter's got a higher top-end of friend quality and a higher bottom-end, generally speaking, than your average public school—the best and worst likely cases for your kids' friend groups are both "better", probably—to pick an exaggerated example.

We do the same thing when we choose where to live for the public schools. It's largely about finding better likely friend group outcomes. "Better" kids are easier to teach and their families are more likely to push them academically, so a proxy for that is how "good" the school is (test scores, college readiness, reputation) but it's kinda sorta mostly about the kids with whom your kids will be hanging out 7-8 hours a day.

The worst case scenario for rich kids, regardless what they do, is so much better than the average scenario for "average to bad public school" kids that it makes no difference exactly if your friends play chess, golf, or, like the ones at my private school, mostly do drugs and buy stuff with their mother's credit card.

Kids at average to bad public schools never meet people who own investment properties, don't learn how to pitch ideas, and don't treat their bank and insurance companies with the careless veneer of superiority that convinces them that whatever has happened to you is merely bad luck, a challenge on the way of better things, versus proof of your moral and genetic worthiness. Kids at average public schools think they can fail, and not merely that the world can fail them. Kids at average public schools think it matters that they be good, and not merely surround themselves with people and circumstances that are good to them.

This is partially why some parents put their kids in private schools. Because their classmates will become other important figures in life. Plus soccer moms can mingle with the other wealthy parents as a networking tactic.

> So think about this when you decide to buy a house, if you have kids.

You are spot on, and we did just that.

Does anyone with kids not do this?. School rankings are front and center when searching for homes to buy.

You may simply not be able to afford a house in a better neighborhood. So I'm sure everybody will do the best they can, but it is limited by their checkbooks.

Good public schools around here drive an ~20-25% increase in house prices, for similar houses with similar commutes et c., versus merely middling schools, let alone the bad ones.

That is a reflection of the difference in household incomes (how much mortgage debt a family qualifies for). Good schools is a proxy for household incomes of the residents in the school district, which is a proxy of education / "achievement" level in life, which is a proxy for how useful you might be to someone else.

Well right, it's all related. The schools are good (largely) because the people sending their kids there are willing and able to pay extra to live near good schools. The houses cost more money because the schools are good. Feedback loop.

I would modify your statement to say “the schools are good because of the type of parents the kids in the school have” - who are well educated, higher earning parents that can provide the guidance and resources that results in the qualities “good” schools are known for.

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