I'm Too Young To Be Afraid Of My Future

When reading these articles it is important to understand what "the American Dream" means and represents. The United States was and still is, despite a major decline in the believers of the American dream, an icon for opportunity, especially fiscal, to anyone with enough drive to make it happen. That is the idea that was spread across the world. Just as many people have come to realize that the American dream is not always possible as it was advertised, many students have been faced with the fact that these "dreams" are quite expensive. In the article entitled A Generation Hobbled by the Soaring Cost of College, by Andrew Martin and Andrew W. Lehren, the cost of the American dream nowadays is put into perspective. Many students graduating from universities and colleges across the country are being financially suffocated by incredible debt caused by the school's high tuition. "Here at Ohio Northern, recent graduates with bachelor's degrees are among the most indebted of any college in the country..." (Martin and Lehren). Students with degrees should never have to be fighting to stay afloat at the beginning of their professional lives. I took a gap year last year and lived and worked in France because I did not want to pay an exorbitant amount of money to go to school. While I was there, I became friends with some Swedish guys and then explained to me how public university is free for them. If you want it you can use it, if not then fine. I do not understand how the United States can continue this archaic way of thinking when there are plenty of working, economically sustainable models all around the world. My hope is that many more young people will start to point out that fact so that our leaders may realize what is possible. In the mean time, students and young people across the nation are feeling less and less inclined to identify as Americans and to be involved in some of the oldest institutions in the United States. As a student in the United States I can see why people from my generation are feeling less and less patriotic. When Joshua Holland quotes the Pew Research Center, in his article, Millennials Didn't Abandon Our Institutions -- Our Institutions Failed Them, as saying "...Millennials are 'the first [generation] in the modern era to have higher levels of student loan debt, poverty and unemployment, and lower levels of wealth and personal income than their two immediate predecessor generations...'" (Holland), it is no surprise to me that the idea of the American Dream has all but vanished from our minds. It is a frightening time to grow up in because absolutely nothing is a guarantee and we are pitted against each other in a sort of mental hunger games to secure positions in schools and at jobs. That is not how you want your countries young population to be behaving. There needs to be an increased effort by the government to shift their priorities to the education of their people.