I have to confess, I'm a little confused. Many posters have said "there are many tools to help people graduate and lift themselves out of poverty" and then someone says that she, herself, availed herself of those very tools and now she's being vilified? She used those "tools" as intended - to feed and house her while gaining skills required to provide a living and life to her family. The end. That she declined her parents' offer really says nothing - perhaps that offer came with strings that might have impeded her eventual independence? Who knows, but the bottom line is that she did what people on this very thread said should be possible for everyone.
On another topic, it seems to me that people have a hard time attributing any portion of their good fortune (in social class, in "choosing" the right parents or country in which to be born) or success at dodging pitfalls to luck. There's something about human psychology that wants to believe that we have earned everything that we have. But, like the students lucky enough to have a teacher to wake them up every day, so much of life is the luck of the draw. What of the teachers who pass everyone no matter what? What of medical issues that go untreated? When we have bad luck, it's skills innate (or not) to us individually that makes the difference (another bit of luck - is your DNA up for the job of giving you the mindset and skills to work harder than everyone around you?)
I've been lucky: upper-middle class parents who valued education, partially paid-for undergrad, income sufficient for grad, married in mid-20s, kids not until planned for, employed to sufficient levels to provide the same (knock wood - there's that luck thing again) for my kids. My sis wasn't so lucky. We were raised identically, and yet our children are in very different economic circumstances. She made some bad choices - but then again, so have I. My luck meant that none of them impeded my success, as hers did for her.
Luck - including lucky DNA - makes all the difference.