Theoretically, I would love for the government to pay for all my crap.
But I know how to seperate fiction from reality, and know that I'll have to work in life. I'm fairly certain those students know the same, and were just writing hypothetically. If you ask someone about the American Dream, they're going to think "utopia" because that's basically what the American Dream symbolizes.
I don't think any of those students actually thought that they were going to get all of those benefits, that's just what they would like to have.
In short, this is really just an overreaction in my opinion.
Also, that whole "grabbing wallets/purse" experiment, even to give a message, is still a dick move.
Could this be debate thread material?