College Graduates & the American Dream

A case might be made that the graffiti in public bathrooms offer as valid a perception of vox populi as the more conventional materials used in public-opinion research. Consider the message scribbled in a rest room on one campus of the City University of New York, where, with a dramatic arrow drawn toward the toilet paper dispenser, a student wrote: “City University Ph.D.: Take One.”

Such cynical humor is but one manifestation of the increasing awareness of a college diplom...