Pursuing a college degree--and the open future for young adults it is believed to secure--anchors what it means to be middle class in the United States today. Acting on the conviction that the rising generation can and should do better than their parents is a middle-class inheritance, and getting young adults to and through college is at the heart of this quest. In this article, the author examines middle-class families' laudatory emphasis on developing their children's potential and their problematic norm of keeping their financial sacrifices hidden. Breaking the collective silence around debt would require admitting to the fragile nature of their finances, imperiling the very middle-class identity that they are trying to shore up by sending their children to college in the first place. The hope of the author is to spark an open, honest, and public debate about how to support middle-class families and the rising generation in ways that live up to their highest ideals.