Over the last forty years, rising national income has helped reduce poverty rates, but this has been accompanied by an increase in economic inequality. While these trends are largely attributed to technological change and demographic shifts, such as changing birth rates, labor force patterns,...

Introduction -- The Power of the Illusion, the Way We Never Were -- The Dream Interrupted, Insecurity Among the Middle-Aged -- Privileged Expectations and Insecure Realities -- The Myth of Equal Opportunity -- Negotiating Uncertainty -- Economic Vulnerability as the New Normal.

Introduction / Stacy Dickert-Conlin and Ross Rubenstein -- Economic inequality in college access, matriculation, and graduation / Robert Haveman and Kathryn Wilson -- Overcoming educational inequality : improving secondary education linkages with broad access postsecondary education / Michael...