For me, I have a mortgage, a car payment, some credit card debt, a daughter and wife to support. Fortunately for me, my father paid for my college tuition and so I’m not facing your situation of having to pay back a school loan, however my wife and I are still currently paying off her MBA degree from back in 2003. I consider our financial situation as middle class, we’re by no means in the 40%-45% tax bracket, but we make enough to meet our monthly needs with plenty left over for entertainment and yearly vacations.

Despite not having the high paying salary and being in debt, I still consider myself and my family living the American Dream – that is (from a financial perspective), even though we do owe money to many financial institutions we have a sense of peace and security for the future through our understanding of “good stewardship”. It’s not about how much you make, but rather what you do with what you do make – as a result of our freedom of choice.

In the context of the average American’s financial situation, I agree that there are unscrupulous individuals and companies in both industries who are greedy and are out to take advantage of people. I also agree that getting a college degree and owning a home are part of the “American Dream”. However, I don’t think cancelling student loan debt will stimulate the economy.

I think we as Americans have lost the understanding and practice of what it means to be a “good steward” – as dictionary.com defines “Stewardship” as a person who manages another’s property or financial affairs; one who administers anything as the agent of another or others.” To think that the money we earn and the material possessions we have are our own – we are greatly and gravely mistaken. Our lives and our material wealth are merely on loan.

Instead of seeking a physical fix , I believe we need to seek a renewing of our attitudes toward money and wealth. Through this revival, I truly believe that we as a nation can recover, restore and relive the “American Dream”.

As the American writer and historian James Truslow Adams wrote in his 1931 book “The Epic of America”. The American Dream is “… that dream of a land in which life should be better and richer and fuller for everyone, with opportunity for each according to ability or achievement. It is a difficult dream for the European upper classes to interpret adequately, and too many of us ourselves have grown weary and mistrustful of it. It is not a dream of motor cars and high wages merely, but a dream of social order in which each man and each woman shall be able to attain to the fullest stature of which they are innately capable, and be recognized by others for what they are, regardless of the fortuitous circumstances of birth or position.”