A Dream That Vanished

As an international student, I would think American Dream is like a dream that most people from around the globe would like to achieve. So, what is the American Dream is all about? The article, Is the American Dream Over written by Cal Thomas, he says, “In modern times it has been defined as achieving greater prosperity and consuming more material goods” (Thomas 568). It simply means that getting equal amount of opportunities in life and having high financial income in each individuals through hard works and dedication. But according to Bob Herbert in Hiding from Reality, he states, “However you want to define the American dream, there is not much of it that’s left anymore” (Herbert 564). Today, we can sense that the American Dream is fading more and more and it seems that most of the people in the United States do not understand how to achieve such big dream. Apparently, the concept of achieving the American Dream is different in every individuals in the society and it is very challenging to unite them as each people have their own selfish goals to achieve. Does the American Dream still exist today? No, the lack of opportunities, income or social inequalities and discrimination are the main factors that cause the American Dream fades into illusion. Firstly, the lack of opportunities given to the people is one of the key ingredient for the dying of the American Dream. Citizens in America are supposed to have an equal amount of opportunities given to those who are dedicated and hard working in their career. Sadly, the concept is irrelevant in the society today. A few individuals who have no talents in specific career fields are getting famous and richer for no reason while people with much talents in the society do not have the same equal amount of opportunities to get the attention they deserve. To achieve the American Dream, Thomas says, “The rules are known to previous generations: studying and staying in school; achieving at least an undergraduate degree …” (Thomas 570). How would we achieve such dream if we are not given the same opportunity to enter university and obtain a degree certificate? Most of the universities in the United States have increased their education fees year by year. More and more low and middle class families could not afford their child to obtain such education. Some would have to stop pursuing college and work at a very young age and others would graduate with student debts. From the article, Are Colleges Worth the Price of Admission? written by Andrew Hacker and Claudia Dreifus, they mention, “Graduating with six figures’ worth of debt is becoming increasingly common” (Hacker & Dreifus 179). As we know, there are very limited amount of opportunities given to the students in America to have a decent education without any financial troubles. Even if some students managed to graduate with a degree, they might not have good job opportunities to earn some cash. The difference in opportunities given to each individuals is one of the obstacles that prevent the society to achieve the American Dream. Apart from that, income inequality also proves to be a challenge to attain the American Dream. The distribution of household income have a great gap between the low/middle class families and the upper class families. As we know, income inequality in the United States have increased yearly. Robert H. Frank states in Income Inequality: Too big to Ignore, “The rich have been spending more simply because they have so much extra money” (Frank 582). More and more markets starting to change their marketing targets to those rich families as they produce certain products and sell them with a very high price, for example, houses. It will definitely affect the current society that they will now have to buy those houses to match with the standards of the wealthy. The low and middle class families will have to apply for bank loans and it takes more than 20 years for them to clear their debts.