Rhode Island becomes fourth state to offer free tuition for community college.

Lawmakers in the Ocean State have passed a measure (with many stipulations) allowing free tuition at its community college through a program they label "The Promise Scholarship." There is only one community college in Rhode Island, but we are talking about a state the size of any backyard in Texas after all.

To qualify for the free tuition, students must have graduated from high school the previous spring, live in Rhode Island, be enrolled full time, and maintain a 2.5 GPA. Furthermore, after the two years, the student must continue living and working in the state for some unspecified amount of time. Might you be held prisoner for life in Rhode Island? Potentially, but I hear east Providence is lovely.

These sorts of stipulations fall in line with what the three other states that allow free tuition require. New York, Oregon, and Tennessee each allow various forms of free tuition, usually based on income and other variables. New York, for instance, limits free tuition at state schools to families who earn less than $125,000.

In case you're wondering, the median household income in New York is $60,850, although New York lawmakers say the $125,000 is still roughly the middle class.

In case you're still wondering, the IRS says that $133,000 places people in the top 10% of American income, meaning nearly 90% of New York qualifies for free tuition. If income is divided equally into upper class, middle class, and lower* class--with 1/3 each--somehow 90% just became 2/3 (middle and lower) in the state of New York.

Math is hard. Maybe a free algebra class at a community college might help.



*The euphemism of "working class" needs to end. There is no sense in allowing the term "upper class" without the equal contrast of "lower class," or to assume those in the other income brackets are somehow not "working." Tender sensibilities won't be offended by a simple fact. Lower class is simply a lower level of income, end of story.

18-year old sues parents to pay for college, among other things.

It's the age-old American drama, you know how it goes.

Mom and Dad live in idyllic suburban hamlet outside New York City. Dad's big time in town. Former cop, current local politician, a man with a name at the local coffee shop, etc. He and the wife lavish their daughter with money, gifts, cars, trips. The daughter can do no wrong. Cheerleader, athlete, honor student, check, check, check.

Then the daughter meets a guy in school, falls in love, and starts rebelling. She breaks rules. She breaks curfew. She breaks hearts. Dad disapproves, becomes strict and demands respect. Dad and daughter bicker. Mom joins in the fray, too. Mom and Dad bicker with the daughter. The boyfriend remains in the picture. The daughter is driven away. Dad cuts off the money supply. Daughter sues.

Suing might be off-script, albeit slightly. But why is this case any different than any other? Mainly that the daughter, Rachel Canning, is suing her parents as an 18-year old, and she wants them to pay for her lifestyle still. Oh, and pay for her high school and college tuition, too.

Children have sued to divorce their parents before--but that's not what Canning is attempting to do, which is what has experts curious. Canning isn't looking for a divorce, just emancipation with financial assistance, but she's doing this as an 18-year old, an age viewed as an adult by most cultures--and that's new territory in American law, because there's no legal groundwork in that area.

What's not new territory? Dad hating your boyfriend.

Utah student pays tuition entirely in $1 bills.

Needing to pay a $2,000 tuition bill at the University of Utah, student Luq Mughal decided to make a statement about the rise in tuition costs. His solution? Channel his inner Scarface and bring a small metal suitcase filled with two thousand $1 bills to the school's billing department.

“When you spend cash, you feel every dollar that you hand over to someone else,” Mughal told the Daily Utah Chronicle. “You feel that you’re losing that. If you just swipe your card, it could be 10,000 or 100,000 bucks and you don’t really feel it. When you actually slide over a huge pile of cash, you really feel like you’ve spent that. That’s your money, and you also want to make that worthwhile by doing well in school.”

Added Mughal abut the experience with the school cashier, "She didn't even count it."

No funny money?! Tony Montana is rolling over in his grave.

State colleges raise tuition prices by smallest percentage in nearly 40 years. Still, they were raised. Again.

According to CNN Money, the tuition increase was 2.9% this year, as opposed to increases of 4.5%, 8.5%, 7.9%, and 7.2% the previous four years. By comparison, private colleges raised tuition rates by an average of 3.8% this year.

In case you're wondering, the median family income in the U.S. has increased by only 1.9% annually for the last decade.

All of this is just a polite reminder you'll be poverty stricken soon.

Tuition at public colleges rises 4.8%.

You might want to find a chair and sit down. Get a fan and a cold drink ready, too--because it's going to be a shock to the system:

CNN Money reports that tuition at public colleges rose 4.8%. It's up 104% in the past decade.

DEEP breaths, my friend. Deep breaths. Steady yourself and take a sip of water. None of us saw this coming.

Nic Ramos is a man who will someday tell you what you're doing wrong with your money.

Tuition rates are higher than ever at colleges and universities nationwide. To show what an attention-seeker man of conviction he is, economics major Nic Ramos paid off his $14,309.51 semester tuition bill at the University of Colorado-Boulder by bringing a duffel bag to the bursar's office filled entirely in $1 bills. (Plus a penny and a half dollar piece. But why be so particular??) This was to show what an extreme bit of cash it takes to go to college.

Ha! Not really. It was done because Nic Ramos thought it'd be funny. But let's pretend.

I should be more specific--Nic Ramos isn't paying his tuition bill. Nic Ramos's parents are paying Nic Ramos's out-of-state tuition bill. (He's from California.) But almost every media outlet reporting this story today prefers skimming over that point. In fact, they skim over the delightful little nugget that Nic Ramos didn't choose the University of Colorado-Boulder for silly reasons like a great economics program or potential employment opportunities.

Nah. He decided his parents could pay his $28,000 yearly tuition at an out-of-state school so he could be closer to the mountains and snow conditions. In essence, it's the world's priciest ski lift ticket. If there was ever a more noble human being alive, I doubt they've ever met Nic Ramos.

The best part is that in ten years Nic Ramos, economics-major-turned-banking-executive, will chastise Americans for not saving enough money. And he should know how to save money--since he never had to spend a dime to get himself through college.