The study’s authors, Carol Hostetter, Sabrina Williamson Sullenberger, and Leila Wood, observe that the palpable faith in meritocracy in the 90s faded, making way in the 2010s for a belief in what they call “The American Dream 2.0.” “In this version of the American Dream, anyone can go to college IF they have the resources, are ok about going into debt, can somehow get the coveted scholarship, are willing to go to community college, or come from a family of means,” they write. The new normal appears to be meritocracy with an asterisk.

Their study takes interviews that Hostetter collected in 1996 for her dissertation and sets them alongside surveys they administered in 2011, with the same prompts and questions. Even though the study’s samples aren’t representative, capturing young people’s attitudes and feelings on paper is useful part of a sociological conversation that is often about looking at the same limited sets of numbers from different angles, under different light.

As views on self-advancement changed over that decade and a half, so did views on the advantages of having lots of money. In 1996, high-schoolers were more likely to feel that wealth wasn’t a ticket to happiness, and a lack of opportunity might even have character-building advantages. “If I was rich, I could see where it could come easy just to take it for granted,” one participant said. By contrast, the 2011 group tended to think that wealth made people happier overall, because it affords them material goods, such as Apple laptops, that would give them the respect and attention of their peers.

Perceptions of higher education’s attainability also appeared to shift over the course of 15 years. Both the 1996 and 2011 cohorts saw college fundamentally as a choice, but in 2011, students were more sensitive to the idea that money is a barrier for some. “When you are lower class I don’t think that you get that downpour of, ‘Here’s how you pay for college,’ ‘You’re going to college,’” one student observed.

Taking all of this together, teens (or at least a few of them in that unnamed Midwestern state) have lost confidence in the power of meritocracy and gained faith in the power of money. Generally, an updated version is supposed to be better than its predecessor, but the American Dream 2.0 doesn’t seem like much of an improvement.

We want to hear what you think about this article. Submit a letter to the editor or write to letters@theatlantic.com.