And now the not so good news. A recent article in The Chronicle of Higher Education looks at student pay at the more unique campus jobs across the country. Not to scare you away from working through college at an on-campus job, but according to one example in that article, a student office assistant making $7.25/hour in the chemistry department at the University of Notre Dame would have to work 135 hours a week and 50 weeks of the year to cover tuition, room, and board. These wages will probably compare to most off-campus jobs you find near your college as well, however, so you may as well investigate all of your job options. Even if you’d be making more elsewhere, it may be worth the convenience and experience to work on campus.

Some examples of hourly wages at on-campus jobs:

• A student custodian at the University of Montana - $7.25
• A beef-barn farmhand at North Dakota State University -$8
• An interpreter at the natural history museum at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities - $9
• A tutor for at-risk elementary students at the University of Florida - $10
• A database builder for the African studies program at the University of Wisconsin at Madison - $11
• A (disrobed) art model at the University of Arizona - $15
• A computer assistant/programmer/Web developer at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign - $17.02

It probably won’t allow you to retire early, but an on-campus job could help you make ends meet and pay for some of those expenses that seem to crop up out of nowhere while you’re pursuing that college degree. Balancing work and college certainly has its advantages - you’re able to potentially lessen that student loan debt, build up your resume and learn the value of time management and responsibility - but it can be difficult, especially if you’re a freshman being bombarded by all your campus has to offer. Browse through our site for tips on how to land and keep a job and keep your academics in line if your financial need means working your way through college.

But finding something new to say can be challenging, even for graduate students and undergraduate students in upper-division college courses.  If the usual strategies aren’t working, we’ve come across a couple of links that can help humanities students generate ideas for academic prose, or at least provide some much-needed levity while you’re agonizing over your coursework.  Note: you may not want to actually use these to write your papers, since your professor or TA is likely to see some of his or her own writing reflected in them.

The University of Chicago writing program has a tool to help both students and career academics craft a sophisticated argument without backbreaking labor: Make Your Own Academic Sentence.  By simply selecting from drop-down menus of current buzzwords in literary theory, you can stumble upon a unique academic argument, and possibly lay the groundwork for a final paper!  If you’re not sure of just what concepts to piece together, some samples are provided by the website’s Virtual Academic and his counterpart the Virtual Critic.

If you’ve got a great academic sentence, but no research area to apply it to, a recent piece in the Chronicle of Higher Education can help with that.  James Lambert’s article “Heteronormity is Hot Right Now” provides some helpful (and hopefully humorous) guidelines for humanities grad students on declaring their research interests (and possibly finding topics for their first seminar papers). Both of the above are also great for answering that question about your academic interests in your grad school application essays.

As a bonus for grad school applicants, the above links are likely to teach you some new (and obscure) vocabulary, so that’s even more of a time-saver for studying for the GRE. However, if nerd humor is not your taste, but you are concerned about getting papers started early and beating the finals week frenzy, you may want to check out our college resources on study skills.

After you’re done checking out our booth and Kevin’s presentation, be sure to apply for the CollegeWeekLive scholarship (you may have already seen this in your scholarship search results).  You have a chance to win $2,500 toward your college education just by logging into this free virtual college fair.  You’ll learn about colleges and paying for school and you may even win money to help fund your college education!

Rounding out the top five were Cooper Union in New York City, at $15,275; Suffolk University in Boston, at $14,544; the University of California at Berkeley, at $14,384; and the New York Institute of Technology at Manhattan, at $14,290.  By contrast, the average college room and board costs for 2009-2010 were $8,193 at public four-year schools and $9,363 for private colleges.  Students who want extras can expect to pay a lot more–to get an idea of how much, check out the New York Times‘ run-through of a few of the swankiest college living arrangements that have debuted recently on three campuses.

The list of the top 20 was largely dominated by schools in cities with high costs of living, where housing costs of $12,000 to $16,000 per year might not seem all that unreasonable. However, when you consider the fact that these costs are for a standard double room without any extravagant extras, students may still want to see if they can get a better deal living off-campus.  It’s possible to pay a comparable price to on-campus room and board for your own bedroom in many locations, and considering college students’ general ingenuity when it comes to apartment penny-pinching and packing people into houses and apartments, living off-campus could very well be a cheaper option than the dorms, regardless of where you attend college.

However, living off-campus isn’t always the best or cheapest option, even if the hefty price tag for a shared room and mediocre dorm food offends your sensibilities.  Before you decide where to live (if you’re given that option–some colleges require students to live on-campus all four years), come up with a sample budget, taking into account realistic costs for housing, food, maintenance, and commuting to and from campus.  For example, don’t budget for walking 20 blocks each way in the winter or eating nothing but ramen and leftover cookies you snag from your department’s faculty meetings, unless that’s really how you intend to live.  Think about what you’re giving up, as well–easy trips to class, free cleaning services, and a close sense of campus community.  If you’re not saving much by living off-campus, perhaps those things will encourage you to stay.

According to the survey,  which was collected via a nationally representative samples of students and faculty members at two- and four-year public and private colleges, students consider themselves much more technologically adept than their instructors, which may not be all that surprising:

• About 75 percent of professors said that their school “understands how they use or want to use technology,” while 32 percent of students said that their college was not preparing them well enough in the field of technology to give them useful skills for the job market.
• About 67 percent of professors are comfortable with their own professional development in the field of technology, while only 38 percent of students said they felt their instructors were sufficiently tech-savvy.
• About 74 percent of professors said that they incorporate technology into most classes, while only 38 percent of students agreed.

Students’ perceptions of the technology gap isn’t a new idea. Instructors are often viewed as being behind on the trends, even when they’re actually quite technologically adept and can prove as much in the classroom. The problem comes in when the students actually are outpacing their instructors, especially in courses where technology could vastly improve a student’s educational experience.

The survey, described in Inside Higher Education today, also polled IT staffers, and compared their answers with those of college professors’. In general, IT staffers expect more out of “smart” classrooms and instructors’ capabilities. Both groups were asked what constitutes a smart classroom, and only about 40 percent of professors responded that an interactive whiteboard and distance learning capabilities to connect students from multiple locations constituted a smart classroom, compared to about 70 percent of IT staffers. Both groups were more on the same page when it came to general and wireless Internet access in the classroom.

The point is, technology isn’t going anywhere, and it’s only going to get more complex as time goes on. Professors, especially in fields where technology is going to be an important tool post-graduation, which is in most disciplines these days, should keep on top of new advances that will help make their students more effective learners.

Another article in Inside Higher Education today looks at Twitter and whether the social networking tool will become commonplace in the classroom. In that article, instructors and administrators seem wary of using Twitter in any educational way - although some are already using Twitter as the basis of their coursework - because it’s seen as more of a fun diversion than a live resource or way to gather data. (Although you should obviously always fact-check anything you read on the site.) Professors may also worry that inviting Twitter into the classroom may distract students more than help them, while others argue that the site will become difficult to ignore by any institution, including colleges and universities.

What do you think about the technological capabilities at your college? Do you think your professors need a primer in new advances in technology? Let us know what you think, and whether you have ideas on how to bridge that technology gap, or whether you think it’s as wide as this survey suggests.

But that doesn’t mean they have to be boring. Sure, you may enjoy the simplicity of the instant noodles’ traditional flavors: beef, chicken and shrimp. One New York chef, however, has made a name for himself serving up ramen at his East Village restaurant. The dishes David Chang creates are made with homemade noodles, something we don’t expect you to try in your dorm room, but it’s the flavors and toppings that make his versions stand out - meat that simmers for hours, dried fish and pork, seasoned in a broth that makes the noodles more like a hearty soup. Chang’s new book, Momofuku, gives away his secrets to making the fancy ramen and other dishes that sound delicious but probably aren’t as straightforward to put together, like kimchi stew with rice cakes and shredded pork.

So what can you do to spice up your own campus version? You can play with toppings first. If you’re a cheese fiend, try some shredded cheddar next time you’re about to dive into that bowl of hot chicken-flavored ramen. Drizzle some hot sauce onto your noodles if you like them with a bit of a kick. Or if you’re somewhat ambitious, cook up your own vegetables to supplement the crunchy flakes that come in the packages.

You don’t need to be a master chef to make do with the things that are probably already in your room or apartment, or to make those college staples like ramen instant noodles more interesting and appetizing. Brows through our site for ideas on not only college cooking and what should be on your grocery list, but eating on a budget. While you probably have more options at college than anywhere else in terms of finding cheap food options, it could be even less expensive to buy things on your own and prepare them the old-fashioned way. If you have access to a kitchen, stock up on the basics like rice and pasta and frozen vegetables and you could be coming up with your own easy (budget) recipes on a regular basis. If you’re living in a dorm but have access to a microwave, by all means pick up that ramen.

However, that doesn’t have to be the case. In a commentary in the Chronicle of Higher Education, author Katharine S. Brooks shares some stories from her 20-some years of experience in career services of liberal arts education leading to career success, which is encouraging for students just beginning to think about how their degree can aid them in the job search. Examples she gives include a philosophy major whose logic class helped him score a perfect 180 on the LSAT, and a student whose knowledge gained in a film class helped him turn an internship into a job offer. Other stories abound. A liberal arts education is remarkably useful in all sorts of unexpected ways.

Her article focuses on encouraging colleges to provide better career services to liberal arts majors, but for students whose schools don’t yet offer these services, she also has good advice. Instead of simply taking your English degree and assuming you need to work in writing or publishing because that’s what you’ve learned to do, Brooks urges pausing to think about the skills you’ve learned and interests you have and trying to find meaningful connections among them. In the end, you’ll have a more complete picture of yourself as a student and as a potential worker. In addition to writing, perhaps your major has given you great skills with finding, interpreting, and evaluating vast amounts of information quickly. Skills like those can easily be applied to a wide variety of careers, and you can use your inventoried interests to focus your search.

Evaluating your interests and experiences is a must for students nearing the end of college, especially in majors that aren’t clear-cut paths to a particular career. Students in the humanities and social sciences have gained college experiences that can lead them in a number of different directions. In addition to adapting their interests and experiences to the corporate environment, they also have potential to further their knowledge of their field as graduate students, to enter into a public service profession, to earn a teaching certificate and become an educator, or to puruse their interests in whatever ways they find appealing. Which direction you choose depends less on the limitations of your major than on your personal preferences and abilities to seek out and seize opportunities-and based on what your degree has taught you, those should be quite well developed.

In recent decades, women have begun to thrive in higher education, making up a significantly larger share of undergraduate students, bachelor’s degree recipients, and master’s degree students than men. Postsecondary Education Opportunity data shows that currently there are 77 men in college for every 100 women, and 73 male bachelor’s degree recipients for every 100 female graduates. While gender gaps still persist within specific fields, including traditionally male-dominated disciplines like engineering and computer science, overall women are coming to college in droves and doing well once they arrive.

This trend shows no sign of reversing and has some worried that men will become increasingly underrepresented in higher education, while simultaneously work opportunities contract in traditionally male-dominated fields that don’t require degrees. Schools and other organizations are beginning to address these concerns. For example, a conference panel last month addressed some of the moves being undertaken to encourage more young men to attend college and persist to a degree.

The Commission on Civil Rights inquiry is intended to see if practices are going beyond encouraging young men to enroll and have actually moved into the territory of discriminating against women in admission by admitting a smaller percentage of female applicants and being more selective in admitting women than men. This practice, while possibly unethical at private colleges, would be illegal at state colleges. So far, there hasn’t been sufficient evidence to support this theory, with the majority of admission officers recently saying they don’t consider gender as an important criterion in college admission, leaving some wondering if the inquiry is entirely necessary. Information subpoenaed from colleges in the Washington, DC area should help the commission determine whether reality reflects reporting.

Adding in another level of controversy and drawing a great deal of criticism to the investigation is the strong focus on athletics in the text of the proposal for the investigation. The theory behind it seems to be that Title IX, the federal regulation designed to prevent sex discrimination–most visibly by mandating that men’s and women’s sports are equally represented in public schools–is preventing men from enrolling in college by limiting their opportunities for athletic involvement. Of all the directions the investigation could take, this certainly seems to be an unusual one, and on the surface it seems to present some problematic and likely inaccurate assumptions about gender. The investigation gets underway this month, so a clearer sense of direction may emerge as time goes on.

Most students receive some merit- or need-based scholarship or grant money to help cover some of those costs, but according to the Chronicle, the average scholarship and grant amounts at the highest priced schools was around $13,000 a year, leaving students and their families to fend for themselves when it comes to looking for outside scholarships, grants and student loans. Despite those staggering numbers, many of the most expensive schools haven’t suffered in terms of declining enrollment, and have expansion and economic recovery plans in the works where the additional funding will come in handy.

Bucknell University, where tuition, fees, room, and board totaled about $50,300 this year, a 22-percent jump over the last six years, plans to hire more faculty and increase aid. And that school wasn’t even in the top five most expensive colleges. Those honors go to Sarah Lawrence College ($55,788), Landmark College ($53,900), Georgetown University ($52,161), New York University ($51,993), and George Washington University ($51,775), in that order.

At the same time, many private colleges and universities are predicting a decrease in revenue and net tuition despite increasing enrollment rates and increasing tuition costs. The Moody’s report “New Tuition Challenges at Many U.S. Private Universities” surveyed 100 private schools and found that nearly 30 percent experienced drops in net revenue and fees for the 2010 fiscal year. This suggests those schools are offering more in terms of financial aid. An article in Inside Higher Education today says some schools may have tried to compensate for a weak economy and projections of low enrollment levels (which for many private colleges turned out not to be the case) with more financial aid offered to incoming students. Most of the public institutions surveyed, however, expect increases in revenue, according to Moody’s.

So what does this mean for private schools? The Chronicle suggests not much. Enrollments so far have supported high tuition rates (and rising median salaries among presidents at private colleges), and a ceiling hasn’t yet been set. Does this suggest that students could be seeing $60,000 in annual costs to attend many of the top private institutions? Possibly. But that would mean financial aid would need to keep up alongside those rising costs. What do you think? How much is too much? If you’re facing sticker shock, be sure to evaluate all of your options. If you’re set on a school, look outside that college for financial aid assistance. Conduct a free scholarship search to see awards you may qualify for that could make a dent in your cost of attendance, and do your research with a college search so that you know exactly what you could be paying at that dream school.

The holistic approach means that colleges are aiming to consider the whole applicant, not just his or her grades and test scores, in the admissions process. This information often includes such things as the student’s background, the type of school he or she attended, and the student’s employment and extracurricular activities. Participation in athletics, volunteering and community service, or school clubs could all work to a student’s advantage under a holistic approach.

How schools collect this additional information about applicants varies, but it’s likely to mean a longer and more complicated college application process. For many schools, this has meant adding sections to the application or asking for more, longer, or less formal application essays. For others, it could involve looking more closely at letters of recommendation or beginning to ask for them when they hadn’t previously. College admission officials are also contacting high school counselors to ask questions about applicants that may not have been answered by their college application.

There are some significant benefits to this process. Students who have taken a less traditional path through high school may find their applications considered more favorably. Another upside of colleges looking more closely at the whole student comes with the question of “fit.” Applicants admitted to institutions with a more holistic approach may find themselves happier at the college they ultimately attend, as their interests and their institution’s focus may match more closely than if they’d been admitted based solely on the results of a formula.

If you are applying to a state college or a private college this year, you may want to take a holistic approach to your application, treating each section as if it’s going to be read with a critical eye. Students who have little to show for their high school experience other than decent grades and test scores could potentially find themselves turned down by their top choice schools, but students who can demonstrate the full depth of their value could see big returns.