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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