ABSTRACT
This chapter explores how has the author's own relationship with the American Dream changed since he completed graduate school and entered the academy as a professor. Prior to World War II, college and homeownership were, for the most part, unreachable dreams for the average American. However, in the wake of the GI Bill, millions of veterans who would have otherwise entered the job market instead chose to further their education. Art, scholarship, medicine, science, research, and law are all perfected there, potentially for the greater good. Colloquially, the academy is often described as the "Ivory Tower", a gilded place where much is thought about, but with little connection to the practicalities of the real world. Extenuating familial circumstances and a misunderstanding of the new neoliberal economics of higher education proved that the author's faith was egregiously misplaced. The Catacombs were developed in the late 1700s to address cave-ins and overflowing cemeteries in Paris.
