Depending on your age, you may see the America of today as being quite different from how your pare

Depending on your age, you may see the America of today as being quite different from how your parents viewed it. Collapsing economy, skyrocketing unemployment rates, flailing businesses, home foreclosures, people drowning in debt... it seems gray in comparison to the shining country of opportunity that lured so many of our previous generations here. Many of the things that were so affordable to the baby-boomers just 30 years ago seem completely out of reach for their children. Owning a home or buying a brand new car is considered a pipe dream for many. Countless Americans suffer from bad credit or credit card debt, or both; usually with the first being the result of the second. So where does this leave Generation Next? The jury is still out on that one. But there is hope. More and more companies are realizing that alienating potential customers based solely on them having bad credit is a big mistake. With so many companies going under and closing down shop, those that are still afloat are trying to stay that way by dealing with sub prime customers, or those people, like about 40% of Americans, who have credit scores below 620. Online searches for "loans with bad credit" typically return hundreds of sites devoted to sub prime lending. True, these sub prime customers are a higher risk than their good-credit-score counterparts, but does that mean they should be denied things like a home or car? And just because they have bad credit does not necessarily mean that they can't afford a home or car- they just have more trouble finding someone willing to give them car loans. These customers may pay more in APR than a typical borrower with good credit, but it's becoming fairly easy to find manageable rates with companies who are in business for the sole purpose of making a loan happen for sub prime borrowers. The Dream which so many of our parents and grandparents flocked to America to find may be a little harder to reach these days, but it hasn't disappeared- You just need to know where to look.