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The attitude of the above statement by one of the college students interviewed is telling. The current generation of college age Americans has grown up in a nanny state, entitlement culture, expecting everyone to cater to their needs. This is not the America I grew up in. As a college student in the 80's it was the struggle of making rent, being able to put gas in my car and somehow pay for tuition in one of the most expensive colleges in the country (USC), in one of the most expensive cities in the country (LA), that taught me as much or more about life than any of my classes. The "starving student" lifestyle was part of the education.
I had to be sure that I worked hard enough to maintain my academic scholarships, which covered about half of my tuition. I then worked nearly full time to pay for my living expenses and the remaining tuition that my scholarships and student loans wouldn't cover. It was hard work, leaving little time or money for leisure or fun.
I did not have my parents help, I did not expect anyone to give a rats ass about whether or not it was fair or not that I had to sacrifice so much to get an education. This kind of thinking did not exist. It was up to me to reach as high as I could to eventually achieve my version of the American dream, and it was my choice to apply to an expensive university that would stretch me beyond my wildest dreams.
But I made that choice willingly, and when I had to go a day or two without eating because my cupboards were completely bare and I had just enough money for gas to get me back and forth to work and school until payday, I did not expect someone else to take care of me. I did not think that I deserved to eat, or deserved to have my journey be easier. I was not special and was not entitled to anything. I made the sacrifice and became a better person for it. I learned how to solve my own problems, and how to live with the consequences of the circumstances I found myself in as a result of the choices I made, right or wrong.
To think that students today would even contemplate food stamps is shocking. Students aren't poor and should not qualify for welfare. Students are making a choice to defer wages for the possibility of better wages in the future. This entitlement attitude is eating away at our culture, turning Americans into creatures of dependency, instead of molding citizens into self-sufficient, capable human beings, embodying the ideal of "rugged individualism." What we are witnessing today is nothing more than "ridiculous dependence."
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