Call it the American Dream cycle. Better educated young people
get higher paying jobs, improved lifestyles, build families who consume more
per family unit, and raise children who continue the trend. When the cycle
works, families in the lower-class become lower-middle-class, then rise to the
middle-middle-class, spending power expands and the economy grows.
The formula has been central to the nation's redress to its African American
citizens, many still struggling to overcome a legacy of economic exploitation
and societal marginalization. Education is critical to the equation, with
programs such as Head Start and Affirmative Action designed to offer black
youth some socioeconomic traction in a traditionally greased system. Still, the
Bush administration targets these programs for termination as manifestations of
an overactive state. What's more, as the country's "wartime" economic straits
siphon public funds away from colleges and students, the Dream cycle is in
danger of braking.
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