The American Dream is Dead. Unless You Leave America.

Struggling to achieve the American Dream? It’s out there. Just in another country.

Remember going to school, with teachers instilling in you the benefits of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness?

Telling you to pay attention in class, to go to college, to follow your passion, and the United States would provide. Because the U.S. was the land of opportunity.

They would tell you this right after pledging allegiance to the flag, and right before not teaching you about wars the U.S. started with countries over pinneaples, or how its dollar diplomacy more or less bankrupted an entire hemisphere.

As long as you put on your work boots, tap shoes, tennis sneakers, or whatever footwear your job required, you’d end up with a nice house, a nice family, and a life worthy of being dubbed a dream.

It was a lie.

We didn’t know it at the time. Why would schools lie to us? Why would parents and previous generations lie to us?

Maybe it didn’t start as a lie, but now, for entire new generations, the American Dream is dead.

At least, if you stay in America.

A Dream Replaced By Survival

I bought into the hype. An American Dream, huh? Sounds pretty good to me. And all I have to do is work hard and I’ll achieve it? Sign me up!

So I signed up. I went to college to follow my passion.

I graduated with a nice education, an ornate piece of paper, and $120,000 in student loans.

In the 13 years since graduation, I’ve paid nearly double what I borrowed. I still owe $80,000. Nobody told me about that.

I knew about interest rates. I started at under 4%. Some of the loans are now above 12%. I’ve never missed a payment.

Still, I worked hard to follow my dream. Rent continued to climb. Student loan payments did as well. I had to pay for car insurance, but I couldn’t afford health insurance. If I was ever in an accident the car would be okay. I would not.