Where I went to high school the process looked like this. If you could pay the $300 for the course, you could start drivers training when you were 15 and 9 months (Somewhere around there). If you could then pay an additional $100-200 (Depending on how many times you had to take the driving test) when you turned 16, you could take the second part of drivers training and the state exam that gave you your license. It's not a ton of money, but the little additional bits add up. You need a certain number of hours driving with a parent to take the second class and those hours could be difficult to get if both parents work, if you only have one vehicle that your parents don't want to risk in the hands of a new driver. No single obstacle looks particularly imposing, but when you're broke enough, every molehill can look like a mountain.