Confusing Wealth with Lifestyle

An article on cnn.com reports that in UCLA's annual survey of college freshman 75% of those surveyed in 2006 thought it was essential or very important to be "very well-off financially.", compared with 62.5 percent who said the same in 1980 and only 42 percent in 1966. What I found most disturbing was that "wealth" was apparently seen as synonymous with the "trappings" of wealth. No wonder these people will leave college with student debt and immediately pile on more debt trying to acquire the "lifestyle of the rich and famous" before they actually have any net worth, let alone become wealthy.