http://www2.ed.gov/programs/fpg/index.html

http://www2.ed.gov/programs/fseog/index.html

http://www.pheaa.org/funding-opportunities/state-grant-program/

Nevertheless, these grants (and loans) make college so much more expensive. In the 1970's Harvard tuition was only $2,000 (equivalent to $12,000 today.) Today Harvard tuition is four times that. 

Anyway, I get more grants from my private university than from the government. My private university pays for 4/5ths of my tuition, the other 1/5th is paid for by the government grants (Pennsyvlania + Federal) and then my housing and food are paid for by loans. Any person who is poor can attend community college off of a pell grant. There IS no excuse not to have a college degree, unless you feel that the opportunity cost of not being in the job market is too high. 

For reference, my mother ( a single parent of three) makes 11,000 /year in taxable income. 

My personal view is that wealth inequality isn't the problem. As lets face it even though the top 1% get 40% of the total wealth I bet then also create jobs that their employees account for perhaps a further 40%, 20% perhaps would be government money handouts and wages made up of tax payers money.

The issue here is that your wages aren't keeping up with inflation. This is some what true in Australia but at least where I work we get 4.5% increase each year because of inflation (which helps keep up with bills to some degree although not as easily as in the past). Every few years employees negotiate a new agreement with the business, usually end up between 3% to 5% yearly increase for a 3 year period.

It also doesn't factor in people moving up in wealth. For example when I first grafuate I was bearly making $50K, now I am making twice that. On that wage here I am still not in the top 1% but I have moved up to a reasonable class I would say.

I have no problem with wealth inequality. People make different choices, some are wise, some are lucky, some lose their shirts. That goes with being human, and no one will ever fix that. The way to fix it is to make ways for people to successfully pick themselves up again.

In case you haven't noticed, our economy is not exactly brimming with ways for people to help themselves if they're in need.

It is, however, brimming with ways to become wage-slaves to someone else. Debt is the new form of slavery. Because education, cars, and houses are all too expensive to buy up front, you pay three times as much over the life of the loan. If you have a job, 20-30% will go to the government in taxes, and another 15% will go to your mortgage, student debt, and car loans.

And, of course, people who don't make much money will feel this pinch more than others. They can't really afford to pay that kind of interest.

In Australia we can get a loan from the government called HECS. Basiclaly the government pays your your education and then once you start earning cash over $X amount you pay a % of your wage back. The % ranges from 5% to about 8% depending on how much you earn. It goes up by inflation each year.

This loan isn't considered debt so when you go to a bank to get say a mortgate for a house it isn't factored in as risk. 

HECS is what really helped me go to University, without it I probably would not have gone.

Education and cars can both be purchased without debt. Most people I know in low-economic situations go to community colleges (no debt required), and buy used cars, without any opportunity cost (they still work during college.) If somebody is poor and decides to purchase a brand new car, then they are making a poor financial decision and are trying to live above their means through debt. This has consequences. If somebody decides to go to college on loans, then they better expect to go in an area that is productive and in demand or one which can pay off these loans when they are completed with their education. Yes, it may seem unfair that some people are born rich, and don't have to do all of these things, but that means they are missing something in life by being coddled. Their affluency isn't concrete, and they lose out because of it, as seen by the 12% of the top income bracket moving to the bottom income bracket per generation. 

The issue is income mobility is mitigated by regulations, government spending (its a concensus among economists that excessive government spending hurts economies) and wealth redistribution (either corporate or personal.)

This is a very common misconception about poor folks i.e they are jobless and lazy. If I work part time at $50/hr for 20 hrs a week. I'll still make much more than someone working 2 full time minimum wage jobs. Does that make me hardworking and them lazy? What of the folks who never really did anything and are millionaires like a Paris Hilton? Is she credited with hardwork?

If your solution is that everyone should get an education, it would only reduce the value of such degrees making us all poor. Now, I won't claim to have the answer but the situation is waay more complex than lazy = poor.

Poor =/= lazy. The only way we can conclude that to be true is if we are adherents to the labor theory of value (which is ridiculous.) Otherwise, I'd say the poor are fiscally irresponsible, considering the many opportunities given for them to succeed, fiscally, include the massive amounts of welfare that act as cushion which brings their/our total income (by benefits) comparable to the middle class. Nevertheless, the more obstacles there are to income mobility the harder it is for the poor to be fiscally responsible and the fewer opportunities available. That is precisely why Scandinavian countries succeed, not because of their welfarism, but because of their low barriers of entry into markets (which happens to make their markets freer and more "capitalist" than the U.S.)

You sir are my new bestest friend. Well said.

Not only doe people continuously shift around income demographics but income "equality" has never even exsisted anywhere at anytime in human history. Heck even resources have never been spread equally.

Is personal experience good enough for you? I grew up in poverty. Both my parents chose a life of drugs and maintained poor lifestyle choices that ultimately stunted their economic viablity. Instead of opting for self improvement they opted to stay uneducated, unmarried(therefore uncommitted), to draw government benefits which they used to support their habits and ultimately landed us on the streets and eventually they seperated. This left my brothers and I in the care of a single mother whom had NO prospects and we languished on AFDC, medi-CAL, and food stamps until we were eventually old enough to get away.

Good thing I CHOSE to better myself, get me an education and work hard to avoid ever being in that position again. Sure bad things happen but making good choices is the very best way to avoid being rendered destitute in the face of those crisis.

Keep in mind that many do this, but the reason why they do not progress in the chart comes down to 2 factors:

1. The base cost of living (ie. the bare minimum that you need to not die) takes a lot more of the total income as a % from those lower in the bracket. This is sometimes falsely stated as "poor people spend recklessly and don't want to save", when in fact in many cases, it's more of a "can't" than a "wont". 

2. The investment portfolios that generally reap the highest returns are more than often "reserved" for those with large amounts of cash to invest. Banks give more attractive rates of return for larger sums of cash, some stock options are open to large investment first (I believe it was Facebook that gave large investors a 1 or 2 day head start).

These two alone would start to see a slow progression towards imbalance; other factors that I haven't mentioned merely speed it up more.