An Outdated idea: The American Dream
By Julie Lin, October 7th 2024
With busy streets and distracting vehicles heard across cities, Americans live their daily lives commuting to their nine to five jobs or studying throughout school, trying to achieve their ultimate version of success. Natural occurrences like these are centered from a focal concept called “The American Dream”, the ‘belief that anyone regardless of economic and social class can achieve their version of success meaning upwards mobility is possible for everyone’.
Initially, this terminology was publicized by James Truslow Adams who authored the book, “Epic in America”, situated and published around the rise & fall of economic conditions that has been present in the 1900’s, predominately establishing the topics of politics and history that particularly affected the attitudes directed towards the American Dream.
Generally, Epic in America was to salvage the true meaning of being American in rough situations as a nation. This was the land of endless opportunities and quality spiritual values, not just continuously gaining prized possessions. Unfortunately, this can be hard to achieve even in the 21st century.
We can all agree that our world is astonishingly different compared to a decade ago; our government, social life, demographics, industry, etc., but especially inflation in prices and education in everything that you would need or want. As reported by Fox Business, the average cost of a home in the 1940’s was $2,983 comparing to today’s prices which are 21.91 times higher. It would be expected that the minimum wage would follow as inflation goes up, but Utah has kept their minimum wage at $7.25 for the last sixteen years. With this, limitations can easily appear for the lower and middle class that want to climb in wealth or status. Higher education is told to be needed to help us achieve greater abundance, yet going to college can cost thousands depending on whether students go in-state or out of state. University of Utah calculated the estimate of spendings that students have in 2024-2025 who were not a resident and lived on campus resulting in a total of $61,640, which was doubled the price of students who also lived on campus but were residents. For students that go to prestigious & well-known universities in the U.S., prices at University of Utah are nothing unlike Northwestern University with a whopping $89,394 for four years.
As a high school student nearing the process of applying to college, it’s worrisome to see that choosing a major you want to pursue or a university that seems like a good fit can either land you into a state of endless debt or is unreachable knowing the price is all too much.
In the end, we’re all wondering how such can obtain what the American Dream wants us to achieve when pay checks don’t match the rate of inflation creeping up as our economy rises or taking as many risks to land a good job with a good pay. I’m not saying the American Dream is the most impossible thing to accomplish, but the modern world doesn’t exactly make it the most accessible and easiest goal to reach.
