"The state runs two types of schools. General schools are open to everyone, and everyone is strongly encouraged but not outright required to attend. They run for a few hours a day every other day from age ten to age sixteen, teaching reading, writing, math, history, that sort of thing. Trade schools thoroughly educate you on a specific aspect of bluestream, so you can do a particular job reliably. If you attend a trade school, your civil service is almost always doing the job you trained for. Neither general schools or trade schools charge anything to attend them or forbid anybody for trivial reasons."

"Privately owned schools or books are how you get a good, generalized knowledge of - anything, bluestream included. But as the advanced schools are privately owned and the owners are interested in making money, they charge to attend them. Plenty of people take the free education from general and trade schools, but don't want to pay for a more thorough education. We both attend Opri Grande learning the stream. We did before the war, anyway."