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The American Dream promises freedom and equality. It offers the freedom to make both the large and small decisions that affect one's life, the.
Table of contents

To be European is to be somehow effeminate, irresolute and, perhaps worst of all, socialist. It's the opposite of the "rugged individualism" and "exceptional nature" of the uniquely American experiment in self-government. But, as a sobering New York Times article last week made clear, America could have a lot to learn by looking to Europe.

One, Some, and All:

According to the New York Times , the American middle class — the linchpin of the country's phenomenal postwar economic growth — can no longer call itself the richest in the world. This was yet one more wake-up call about the reality of America's continuing economic malaise. Forty per cent self-identify as lower-class, a point jump since Among young people, the numbers are even more depressing. Those who place themselves in the lowest tier have doubled in just the past six years.

While a majority of Americans tenaciously continue to hold dear to the American Dream — that long-standing American ideal that if you work hard anything is possible — more and more people are reporting that the opportunity for social advancement feels increasingly out of reach for them and their children. Indeed, it is hard to think of a more disquieting trend in American society than the fact that those in their 20s and 30s are less likely to have a high school diploma than those between the ages of 55 and All of this must seem counterintuitive to foreign audiences.

The US swaggers along on the world stage with a certainty and sense of moral purpose that no other country can match. Blessed with practically limitless national resources, a dynamic and diverse population, a relatively stable political system and innovative technological capabilities that other nations can only dream of, how can so many Americans be falling behind — and how can the nation's leaders allow it to happen?

Granted, no one actively set out to attack the middle class in America. There wasn't some evil plan hatched behind closed doors to wreak socio-economic havoc. It is the direct result of a political system that has for more than four decades abdicated its responsibilities — and tilted the economic scales toward the most affluent and well-connected in American society. The idea that government has an obligation to create jobs, grow the economy, construct a social safety net or even put the interests of the most vulnerable in society above the most successful has gone the way of transistor radios, fax machines and VCRs.

Today, America is paying the price for that indifference to this slow-motion economic collapse. Once, Americans lived in a country where it wasn't just the biggest boats that floated high on a rising economic tide. In the years after the Second World War, America was defined by an unprecedented period of economic prosperity. Jobs were plentiful and well-paying, with generous health and retirement benefits. New creature comforts, from refrigerators and washing machines to televisions and cars, were suddenly available.

Americans became homeowners and eventually, if they were lucky, suburbanites. Perhaps most important, those at the bottom of the economic ladder shared in the bounty as much as those at the top.

The American Dream is now just that for its middle classes – a dream

If you build it, he will come. From the movie Field of Dreams. Fueled by aspirations for an educated citizenry and upward mobility through expanded educational opportunities, with aspirations that put more young people into school for longer periods than had ever occurred, education became central to the American way of life.

Colleges and universities became part of this phenomenon, with escalating intensity after World War II, propelled by expansive government investments, by growing income returns and greater access to professions, and by regional competition that impelled states and localities to build new campuses and expand existing ones. Higher education quickly changed from its relatively minor role in American life before the middle of the 20th century into a major industry. But these images were also complemented, and to a significant degree replaced, by the reality that in the second half of the 20th century professors were taken to be studious academics interested in research and their laboratories, people who could be seen on television and writing in newspapers commenting on current issues.

Their work supported national defense—the research that produced the atom bomb was largely done by professors—their breakthroughs in medical research were astounding, and they became central figures in articulating economic and social policies. Millions of Americans clamored for access to college and their aspirations soon made college entry the stuff of politics, with debates over affirmative action and financial aid taking center stage.

The numbers and the money that flowed into higher education were staggering.


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Three sets of data tell the story of growth: more institutions, increasing enrollments, and more money. Between and , the number of degree granting institutions more than doubled, from 1, to 4, Enrollment growth was even more impressive with total enrollment increasing from 2. The amount of money was extraordinary. Just as American industries—textiles, steel, and automobiles— found themselves threatened by foreign imports and global competition, by managerial miscalculations and worker demands for higher wages, shorter workweeks, and full-coverage medical insurance, so too did higher education find itself troubled.

Demonstrations, strikes, and violence during the s and early s divided higher education from within, and diminished enthusiasm for it among politicians and the public at large.

Papa Roach - American Dreams (Official Video)

One version of the criticism was colleges and universities had become yet another mistaken entitlement of the welfare state. A slowdown in income returns to those with a college education during the s combined with the rising costs of going to college—the industry seemed unable or unwilling to rein in its expenditures—opened higher education to even more strident criticism, complemented by efforts to reduce federal and state expenditures.

During the s, state appropriations, the largest source of government funds for higher education, increased only slightly per student, in fact, remaining unchanged when measured in constant dollars. Government funding as a percentage of funding for higher education declined during the s. The media joined in with increasing glee, as it found itself yet another institution corrupt in its ways, reporting on the misuse of funds, luxuries for administrators and students, and professors who taught very little and were often jetting off to somewhere else rather than being on campus.

Each rocky moment was followed by renewed enthusiasm, more applications for admission, expansion of facilities, and greater success at raising money. Sputnik produced considerable criticism and worries, but out of it came the National Defense Education Act of , which gave unprecedented federal fiscal support for the sciences, foreign languages, area studies, and campus growth.

A few years later the Higher Education Act of opened the doors to even more people through a massive program of financial aid for low-income students, part of the growing sense that higher education was critical to national defense and economic growth. Certainly few if any young people turned away from attending college because students had protested. The most obvious direct impact of the student demonstrations was to give students more freedom. Campus restrictions to student life effectively disappeared in the s, as in loco parentis became a dirty word.

The number of required courses declined and the size of the overall curriculum increased, giving students more choices in what to take and faculty more freedom to teach what they wanted. Income and status returns to college attendance remained high, and if the rate of growth slowed and may have even declined slightly after , attending college was still a wise decision in comparison to not going, as the job market for high school graduates collapsed.

With predictions at the beginning of the s that the declining number of to year olds in the population would substantially diminish the market for students, higher education discovered that greater proportions were seeking enrollment and also turned to nontraditional students more accurately returned to them, since the G. Bill after World War II, which provided tuition and living expenses to returning veterans, had brought millions of young adults to the campuses.

James Truslow Adams: Dreaming up the American Dream

Community colleges in particular burst at the seams enrolling high school graduates and dropouts, adults seeking job preparation, and others simply wanting a place to learn more about the world and themselves. The precipitous drop in the stock market in , which looked like a major threat to the higher education industry, was quickly followed by an incredible run of income returns, making it seem that every college and university with the right investment strategy could be secure, if not rich.

One had to let the public know the field was there, market the products, build student-friendly facilities, and create a number of different leagues, from high prestige expensive to low prestige budget institutions, so that everyone had a place to go. Sometimes rain fell and conditions were poor, some teams operated in the red and folded.

Higher education could take pride in its success. In the past the question had always been, how many educated people can a society afford? Today it is increasingly, how many people who are not highly educated can a society afford? Under the G. Bill, between and , 2.

American Dream - Wikipedia

Older than the traditional college students, more explicitly vocationally oriented, and impatient with the traditions of college life, especially since many were married with children, the veterans dramatized and reinforced the inextricable link between getting ahead, grabbing a piece of the American dream, and enrolling in college. At least three consequences emerged from this early post- War success. Although the G. Bill was initially seen as a way to keep returning veterans from immediately entering the labor market, and thus flooding it with more job seekers than jobs, the federal grants to support college attendance linked federal largesse to the expansion of educational opportunity—a fact which surprised both the original supporters of the Bill and the higher education community itself, which had been wary of too many of the wrong kinds of students coming.

As a result, a new conception emerged of who and how many should go to college and who would pay for it.

Transcontinental Railroad

An expansive higher education system with public funding would fulfill simultaneously the possibility that every American would have the opportunity to achieve the American dream while ensuring that the nation would be more prosperous and more secure. This would require active, indeed aggressive, federal involvement and investment in post-secondary education, including free, tax-supported public community colleges.

I, 68— Few had ever spoken so bluntly about public sponsorship of post-secondary education for the labor market. As America began the s, higher education was about to enter a whole new world. Over the course of the previous decades, four established themes combined to lay the foundation for the postwar era: vocationalism, public higher education, multiple sectors of post-secondary schooling, and research.