
With No Frills or Tuition, a College Draws Notice - crocus
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/21/education/21endowments.html?em&ex=1216872000&en=fa7413adb3d96c53&ei=5070
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anotherjesse
I went to Berea for my undergraduate degree.

My first two semesters I worked 10hrs/week in the pit (the basement of food
services) on weekends at 6am cleaning dishes. Not that fun.

Each semester after that I would work in either multi-media production or as
the only student assistant systems analyst. This meant converting cobol
applications running on a Prime mini-computer to Oracle Forms.

They didn't have a computer science major at the time, so I majored in
mathematics (and loved learning about proving things and that advanced
mathematics != calculus). While they do have computer science now, I would
highly recommend doing self learning (lisp, python, javascript, ...) and
majoring in math, science or even theater!

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teuobk
For those interested in a tuition-free, high-quality engineering college,
consider Olin College.

I didn't go there, and I have the student loans to prove it.

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markbao
Olin's in my neck of the woods (literally) and I have a friend that's going
there. A good school, a great price (only pay room/board.)

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henning
Getting Real for universities?

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SwellJoe
A lot of them could use a little dose of reality.

But if the textbook manufacturers don't also get a dose of it (or a swift kick
in the teeth, I'm flexible on the matter), it won't solve the entirety of the
problem. A few years ago, my girlfriend paid nearly $400 for a single book/CD-
ROM/online combo for _one class_ \--and the CD-ROM/online service was licensed
to disallow resale. That was the most expensive, but many classes require
three or four texts at $100+ each. So, even if the schools themselves lower
admissions dramatically, there's still a huge swath of costs that lower income
folks won't be able to manage. It just seems like the textbook industry has
gone mad with power and greed...I managed to make it through school with
almost entirely used books from alternate sources (usually prior editions,
even, which could be had for pennies on the dollar from local used
bookstores), but the textbook manufacturers seem to be figuring out ways to
prevent that--more frequent new editions, more dramatic changes between
editions to make it harder for students to find their way in older editions,
and the associated media licensing tricks to prevent legal used sales
entirely.

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abossy
I would order the "restricted asian edition" textbooks on-line for about a
quarter of the normal price. The quality is not as good, but the content is
certainly there. I never exactly understood the legality of doing this, but
it's certainly a testament to the growing problem that is the college
textbooks market.

~~~
nostrademons
When I was in school, we'd always order from Amazon.co.uk because European
countries apparently subsidize textbooks, and so we could get them for about
1/3 of the U.S. price. Unfortunately the falling USD has kinda nixed that
practice, and I think Amazon may've started adding shipping surcharges for
ordering from Amazon.co.uk and shipping to the U.S.

