Some are no-brainers: your pet, a landline telephone, credit cards and a fake ID. Others probably depend on the particular student’s situation. A car may in fact be necessary if you plan to work off-campus and public transportation is unreliable or unavailable. Some students may prefer to keep a printer in their room, instead of rushing off to the library to print a paper five minutes before it’s due.

We think incoming freshmen can make the appropriate decisions about what they need and what they don’t based on their own personal preferences.

For the student who absolutely, positively needs help packing for college, the Old Educator has provided a comprehensive albeit somewhat dated (VCR? Really?) list of essential items and those you should leave behind.

What are some items you can’t live without? Which are you planning on leaving behind? How can roommates agree on what they do and don’t need in a shared dorm?

If all else fails, you may want to ask a ninja.

For those of you who are just entering college this fall–or returning to it–there’s no better time to start learning how to budget your money.

Zen College Life has listed ten ways to live frugally in college; buy used books, brew your own coffee, don’t eat out too much, and ride a bike being just a few of them. One commenter also mentioned an eleventh: use Skype to call home! With all the new friends to be made in college, those minutes can run out fast.

Click here to check out the list, and share your own ideas below on ways to save!

Facebook would not be what it is today without college students. Its origins trace to Mark Zuckerberg’s Harvard dorm room. Students were the first, the most loyal, and the most active users. Eventually, though, Facebook opened its doors to everyone.

Since then, Facebook hasn’t paid a lot of attention to its roots with students. Meanwhile, parents and employers of students are logging on to Facebook. It’s no longer an exclusive club for college kids with .edu e-mail addresses, and those same students are more concerned about privacy than ever.

In response, Facebook is trying to rally its student base. Via Wired Campus:

“This week Facebook threw a bone to students, in the form of a new ‘Universities on Facebook‘ page. The idea is to help students better use the site for campus activities like newspapers, dorm groups, and student government.”

It’s possible this might be “too little, too late” in the minds of some students: this past week, two new college-only social networks (one of which is aptly named CollegeOnly) launched to reclaim the appeal Facebook used to have for students. Via VentureBeat:

“If you’re a sneaky parent thinking you’ll create a fake profile and keep tabs on your kids, guess again. Only valid college email addresses are able to sign-up, eliminating pesky parents, immature high school students, and even employers.”

Do you think college students will abandon Facebook for alternatives for privacy and exclusivity? What is most important to you about a social networking site?

The data showed that while the overall unemployment rate had increased to 8.6% in September 2009, unemployment for all men and women without high school diplomas had shot up more, from 10% in 2007 to a whopping 17.5% in late 2009.

What’s worse was the gap between Caucasians and African-Americans: for black men and women without high school diplomas, the jobless rate was 27.2%. Black men ages 15-24 bore the brunt of unemployment – 48.5% of those without high school diplomas did not have jobs.

As we’ve posted before, finishing high school and attaining some level of post-secondary education (certification, vocational training, community college, or a four-year degree) are both becoming crucial to finding work in the U.S.

With unemployment at 9.5% as of July 2010, finding a job is even more difficult now, especially for those who have dropped out of high school. In this economy, you can’t afford to not finish high school, and college makes an even bigger difference in the long run.

Are you out of work? Do you have a degree and has it opened up more job opportunities for you?

• The University of Southern California tops UCLA in the U.S. News & World Report rankings.

• Education Secretary Arne Duncan calls on schools to collect and share data about teacher effectiveness with both parents and teachers.

• The narrowing of the achievement gap between white and African American students in D.C.’s public schools has “stalled.”

• New Jersey Governor Chris Christie fired the state’s Education Commissioner over the loss of Round 2 of Race To The Top.

• The College Board and the Education Department are asking, how much will college really cost? The College Board has come out with a “net price calculator” to help students and families get an accurate sense of the true cost of higher education before applying to college.

This Sunday marks the fifth anniversary of Hurricane Katrina. Though much of the Gulf region is still recovering, great strides have been made in the public school system in the past five years. Whereas, prior to the catastrophe, the city of New Orleans faced immense challenges in education, we are now seeing a remarkable turnaround.

From Reason.tv:

“Before hurricane Katrina ravaged the city in 2005, New Orleans had one of the worst performing public school districts in the nation. Katrina forced nearly a million people to leave their homes and caused almost $100 billion in damages. To an already failing public school system, the storm seemed to provide the final deathblow. But then something amazing happened. In the wake of Katrina, education reformers decided to seize the opportunity and start fresh with a system based on choice.



Today, New Orleans has the most market-based school system in the US. Sixty percent of New Orleans students currently attend charter schools, test scores are up, and talented and passionate educators from around the country are flocking to New Orleans to be a part of the education revolution. It’s too early to tell if the New Orleans experiment in school choice will succeed over the long term, but for the first time in decades people are optimistic about the future of New Orleans schools.”

“It hit it right on the spot. I dropped out of school because of the public system. I felt like I wasn’t learning anything. It was holding me back and I wasn’t going to be prepared for college” says one of the young women interviewed in this video filmed after a Chicago screening of the new educational documentary, “Waiting for Superman“.

Watch this video to see other young people’s thoughts on issues presented in”Waiting ForSuperman“.

Late last month, the U.S. Department of Education proposed rules that would potentially cut off federal financial aid to schools whose graduates don’t find jobs and pay off their debts. In addition, they released data about the total debt that each school’s alumni have currently. Gawker broke down a top ten list of the traditional colleges and universities whose graduates cumulatively have the most student loan debt.

1. New York University: $659 million
2. University of Southern California: $631 million
3. Penn State University: $590 million
4. Ohio State University: $560 million
5. University of Minnesota: $495 million
6. Arizona State University: $479 million
7. University of Texas: $474 million
8. Michigan State University: $433 million
9. Indiana University- Purdue University: $421 million
10. Rutgers: $398 million

We also went through the data, and the for-profit schools at the top of the list were:

1. University of Phoenix: $4.96 billion
2. Nova Southeastern University: $1.14 billion
3. American Intercontinental University: $810 million
4. Walden University: $450 million
5. Capella University: $392 million
6. Keller Graduate School of Management (Devry): $360 million

Where are you considering going to school? How does the cost of tuition and possible debt affect your decision to apply to certain schools over others?

Madeleine Sackler, director of the critically acclaimed documentary The Lottery, recently sat down with Reason.tv Editor in Chief Nick Gillespie to why she made the film and what she hopes will happen with public education in America.

View the trailer for The Lottery here.

“The risk of failing to improve public education is enormous,” says Sackler. “I’d been hearing that problems in public education where poverty based or culture based or because certain parents didn’t value education, and yet, what I saw was totally contradictory to that.”

Perhaps The Lottery — along with another upcoming education documentary Waiting For Superman — can help set reform in motion. Is America at a tipping point with regards to a coming education revolution? Weigh in below!

• Congress passes bill to provide $10 billion to support 160,000 education jobs nationwide (via Ed.gov)

• Obama calls for the U.S. to lead in college graduation rate by 2020, reiterating that “education is an economic issue.” (via The New York Times)

• NY Times columnist Maureen Dowd writes about the rewards of having roommates with diverse personalities. (via New York Times)

• U.S. News offers up five tips on getting along with your roommates. (via U.S. News & World Report)

• Texas student is the first to complete and submit the common application this year (via New York Times)