You were lucky to have a quality library available to you. They aren't really free, and not everyone has the good fortune to grow up in a place that can afford one. You were lucky that your public school education was able to get you into a college. Not everyone has that opportunity, no matter how hard they work in school. You were lucky that you were able to find a crappy retail job to put yourself through college. Some people can't find jobs to do that, and not for lack of looking.

Libraries and public schools are excellent examples. While I can't speak for these protesters as I'm not there with them, a lot of the sentiment that people are expressing is a sense of fewer opportunities. Schools and libraries are getting their budgets slashed across the entire country. This due in large part to fiscal policy. Bad policy leads to lower tax revenues leads to cutting teachers and library resources. I don't have the solution, but I can see how it's related to the finance industry as a whole.

I agree with you that people should be responsible for making use of the opportunities that they have. Being offered a public education doesn't guarantee you anything, you have to actually take the time to learn from it. But that only works so long as we continue to offer quality public educations.

I'm really just tired of people saying "I made it, why can't everyone else?" without considering that their situation may be different.