Being born in a rich family also means meeting people and making the contacts earlier in life, which will later be helpful in that most difficult step of finding the first job. There is also the morality, which comes from the conditional learning of the environment that person is surrounded by. A person that is surrounded by the morally and financially stable people will adopt that thinking. Another aspect of being born to a rich family is the set example by the surroundings. When people that you feel close to have accomplished some things in life it is only natural to want to strive for something high in life. Influential people in American society, just like in any other societies have a great deal of appreciation for education and schooling in general. .
On the other hand, we have a poor family. A person that was born to a poor family has been exposed to a lot of worries about financial situation. Most likely, the person at the early age had to think how to support a family or just help them out. Most likely that person will have to work along with going to school, of course the job will take away concentration from school. There will be a little chance that the person will finish high school or even go to college. The family will show little or no support for the higher education, because they will look at the short run problems, they need money now, not four years from now. Secondly, the person will not be as motivated to go to school of higher education as the person who was born to a rich family. The surrounding of that person does not provide the proper environment for the logical thinking in terms of long term life goals, because most likely the family will live in the area that is consistent with their income, meaning that the child will never get a chance to see the full meaning of completing the higher education. .
To every rule there are always exceptions. There are people who would totally disagree that the opportunities are limited only to the rich.