Many older people believe that young people are spoiled and self-indulgent. Worse, they are blissfully unappreciative of how difficult things were in days of yore.

The reality is just the reverse: Many older people are unaware that today's college graduates face a world that is seriously tougher.

How much tougher? Here's a personal comparison.

Education. I graduated from M.I.T. in 1962. Tuition broke $1,000 a year in 58-59, the year I matriculated. It rose to about $1,500 by graduation. Tuition wasn't cheap for the time but it wasn't mind boggling, either. With a typical starting salary of about $6,000 a year, four years of tuition cost less that a year of earnings.

Today's graduates paid tuition of $32,300 for their senior year. For them, four years of tuition cost about two years of starting salary. That's twice the 1962 cost. That $32,300 may be high relative to most colleges, but intimidating education expenses are endemic. As a result, many of today's graduates enter the job market with significant debt.

Payroll taxes. In 1962 the employee portion of the old age tax was 3.125 percent of the first $4,800 of income. So you could graduate from college, get your first job, and look forward to a bigger paycheck before the end of the year. For me, the tax stopped at the end of September.

Today, the combination of the old age and Medicare taxes for employees is 7.65 percent of the first $94,600 of income. The tax cost of supporting the elderly has more than doubled. Today, few college graduates can look forward to having a bigger paycheck before the end of the year. Most will pay the full employment tax twelve months a year, for the rest of their working lives.

Today, at age 65 years and 6 months, I am eligible for $2,048 a month in Social Security retirement benefits. It would take more than four of today's graduates, were they fortunate enough to earn $94,600, just to pay my benefits. If we consider a more typical starting salary of $50,000, it would take nearly 8 new grads to pay my benefits. (Fortunately for them, I'm still paying in rather than taking out.)

Income taxes. Here, there is a ray of sunshine among the clouds. Personal exemptions have nearly kept pace with inflation, rising from $600 to $3,300 over the period. That's not horribly short of the $4,000 a person it should be, adjusted for inflation.

The top tax rate has come down from 91 percent (on 1962 taxable incomes over $200,000) to 35 percent. More important, in 1962 any taxable income up to $2,000 was taxed at 20 percent and $8,000 of taxable income was taxed at 34 percent.

Today, the inflation adjusted equivalent of $8,000 would be $53,400. It would be taxed at only 15 percent on a joint return and 25 percent on a single return. While the top 25 percent of earners (those with adjusted gross incomes of at least $57,343 in 2003) pay 84 percent of all income taxes, the total tax burden that most people pay (payroll and income taxes) has become much less progressive since 1962.

Home prices. Home mortgage rates aren't too much higher, today, than they were in 1962. Then, they were just below 6 percent. Today, you'd pay a bit over 6 percent for the equivalent mortgage. What has changed is the price of housing--- and the change has been brutal. In the early '60s homes sold for $10,000 to $15,000, about 2.5 times the income of a new college graduate. Today, the median existing home sells for $218,000, according to the National Association of Realtors. That's 4 to 5 times the income of today's new college graduates. New homeowners, like new college graduates, have to carry a lot more debt.

Worse, the national median figure tells us nothing about the incredible price gap between houses in different areas of the country. At $390,000, the median existing single family home in the Boston area is about 6 times the starting salary of a recent MIT graduate. A similarly impossible story holds for those graduating from anywhere in California.

All in all, starting an adult life has gotten to be pricey and dicey.

If Horace Greeley were alive today, his immortal words wouldn't have quite the same ring. To properly reflect today's graduates and opportunities he would have to say:

"Go mid-country, young woman, go mid-country." Inflation calculator

Starting Salaries for college grads

National Association of Realtors, home price data