One of the most impressive biographies in recent years is about to be published under the catchy title Swimming Upstream, a riveting account of how a young black woman, Shirley Zinn, rises from the stifling conditions of the Cape Flats under apartheid to take a doctorate from Harvard and become one of the leading human resources professionals in the country today. What makes this well-written book particularly relevant is that it draws attention to the role of non-material resources in shaping the destiny of disadvantaged youth in circumstances where there was little money and even fewer opportunities.The meeting this week between President Jacob Zuma and the executive committees of chairmen of councils and vice-chancellors of universities could not have come at a better time as we seek answers to the cycles of often violent protests on some campuses. But the impulse to throw more money at the problem is not in itself going to improve the participation rates in higher education of poor high school pupils or the completion rates of university students enrolled for degrees. There is another set of resources which took Zinn from a council house in Steenberg, Cape Town, to the boardrooms of corporate South Africa and a share in the management of some of the leading multinational companies in the world.What are those things that money cannot buy and yet so powerfully shape the choices and careers of young people? This is what Swimming Upstream brings to light. It helps, first of all, to have devoted parents who work tirelessly to ensure each child is loved and cared for regardless of the struggles they face. It makes a difference that a child grows up in an environment that places considerable importance on a core set of values to steer children through life. In the case of Zinn those values come from a deeply religious family which takes its children through the disciplining routines of the faith community.It is vital to have an extended family that shares an interest in the welfare of relatives' children; these are emotional resources that combine to keep a child on the straight and narrow, to encourage the young person during a slump, to communicate high expectations about scholastic achievement, and to generally be the cheerleaders of every little success achieved at school and university.None of these resources matter very much unless you have a solid education. The book has yet to be written about leading black schools that defied apartheid's logic and created competent and critical young matriculants who would attend university as first-in-the-family enrolees and go on to launch life-altering careers in their community and country. Such schools were South Peninsula High School in the Cape (which Zinn attended) or Inanda Seminary for Girls outside Durban. The teachers were warm and caring individuals devoted to their subjects and their charges; they helped restless minds make sense of the political turmoil around them and helped complete applications to that strange beast called the university. The school buildings were not great - some learnt in prefabricated structures - and the material resources scant; but what those schools offered was a level of care and competence that altered lives for generations of black youth.We have fallen into the trap of thinking that if only more money was spent schools would become more equal and universities less violent. Government can make education free at all levels but most children will still struggle to succeed in the absence of emotional, spiritual and communal resources that not only anchor but give meaning and direction to young lives. It is the poverty of these non-material resources, and the emptiness that follows, that go some way to explaining the rage of some young people who have never experienced the gentle, loving and disciplined upbringing that could help them navigate a dangerous world.Where parents are absent, dead, or alive, enslaved to alcohol or blind to the routine abuse of an uncle or nephew, young lives are shattered since the environment is depleted of the critical resources that can break the cycle of poverty.Of course the money helps; a child who cannot apply or register for studies has fallen at the first hurdle. But what is even more important are networks of support that can carry the young person through periods of doubt and despair when dropping out is a real option. This is what policy and activism now need to focus on - what are the other kinds of resources, beyond finances, that must be put in place so that young people excel in both school and university?..