The Poptop developers chose to consolidate education and social class levels - and to call them by education levels. It might be better understood by players if it were called by social class.
http://www.the-nextlevel.com/tropico/cafe/index.php?topic=210.0A
"built-in" of the game is that education level stands-in for social class level viz
- Uneducated = Low Class
- Proletariat
- Peasants\Farmers
- High School = Middle Class
- Petit Bourgeoisie
- Trade Union Workers
- College = High Class
- Bourgeoisie
- El Presidente is the only Landlord
While some individuals desire to gain education to rise in social class (and concurrently higher pay), others have developed class consciousness and desire to stay with the Proletariat regardless of their education. That depends on faction support.
Rebel-Yell's research during the Cafe's "lost period" discovered that Tropican educational instutions produce graduates with definite leanings toward specific faction support. The military and religious connections are obivious. The shocker is that the "General Education" setting is not
general at all, but rather is tilted toward Intellectuals (including Environmentalists) and secondly toward Capitalists. Take that information and link it with the concept that an individual's faction support is probably the second (after pay level) most important influence in job selection -- and some of the fog about why El Presidente has such a hard time playing god with his citizens' lives.
Consider the jobs you are trying to fill from the aspect of which faction is likely to support that activity. That is to say, "Lose your preconceived class notions (especially if you are American) and start living in the game."
The Concept of Social Class
The concept of social class as "a division or order of society according to status is a very ancient one, the English word 'class' being derived from the Latin 'classis', meaning each of the "... ancient divisions of the Roman people". Servius Tullius, king of Rome in the 6th century BC, organised a classification system which divided citizens into five classes according to wealth".
The Marxist Definition of Class
Marxist-Leninists accept the concept of social class put forward above, but hold that a person's social class is determined not by the amount of his wealth, but by the source of his income as determined by his relation to labour and to the means of production.
"Classes are large groups of people differing from each other by the place they occupy in a historically determined system of social production, by their relation (in most cases fixed and formulated by law) to the means of production, by their role in the social organisation of labour, and, consequently, by the dimensions of the share of social wealth of which they dispose and their mode of acquiring it". (Vladimir I. Lenin)
To Marxist-Leninists, therefore, the class to which a person belongs is determined by objective reality, not by someone's opinion.
On the basis of the above definition, Marxist-Leninists distinguish three basic classes in 19th century Britain:
"There are three great social groups, whose members... live on wages, profit and ground rent respectively". (Karl Marx).
These three basis classes are 1) the proletariat or working class, 2) the bourgeoisie or capitalist class and 3) the landlord class, respectively.
The Landlord Class
Marxist-Leninists define the landlord class as that class which owns land and derives its income from ground rent on that land:
"Land becomes... personified and... gets on its hind legs to demand... its share of the product created with its help...: rent (Karl Marx.
With the development of capitalist society, however, the landlord class progressively loses its importance and a new class emerges -- the petty bourgeoisie. Thus, in a developed capitalist society, there are still three basic classes, but these are now: 1) the capitalist class or bourgeoisie; 2) the petty bourgeoisie; and 3) the working class or proletariat:
"Every capitalist country... is basically divided into three main forces: the bourgeoisie, the petty bourgeoisie and the proletariat". (Vladimir I. Lenin).
The Bourgeoisie
The English word 'bourgeoisie' is derived from the French word 'bourgeoisie' meaning "... the trading middle class" as distinct from the landlord class.
Marxist-Leninists define the bourgeoisie or capitalist class as
"...the class of modern capitalists, owners of the means of social production and employers of wage labour". (Friedrich Engels).
The capitalist class includes persons whose remuneration may come nominally in the form of a salary, but which is in fact due to their position in the capitalist class (e.g., the directors of large companies). It also includes persons who are not employers, but who serve the capitalist class in high administrative positions:
"The latter group contains sections of the population who belong to the big bourgeoisie: all the rentiers (living on the income from capital and real estate...), then part of the intelligentsia, the high military and civil officials, etc. (Vladimir I. Lenin).
It also includes the dependents of these persons.
The Proletariat
The English word 'proletariat' is derived from the Latin 'proles', meaning 'offspring', since according to Roman law a proletarian served the state "... not with his property, but only with his offspring.
Marxist-Leninists define the proletariat or working class as
"...that class of modern wage labourers who, having no means of production of their own, are reduced to selling their labour power in order to live (Friedrich Engels).
In modern society, "... the proletariat alone is a really revolutionary class" so that, in producing the proletariat, the bourgeoisie produces "... its own gravediggers". (Karl Marx & Friedrich Engels).
http://www.mltranslations.org/Britain/Marxclass.htm