To avoid the high cost of college tuition and the huge loans that go with it, some students are trying a unique — if not drastic — approach to save money.  It’s called marriage.

Here’s the deal, according to The New York Times. At the University of California – Berkeley, in-state tuition is $22,000 a year less than out-0f-state.

For students to prove they’re California residents, they must:

• Physically live in state
• Show they intend to stay, and
• Be financially independent.

Married students are able to claim themselves as financially independent.

The Times mentions one out-of-state student who married after her sophomore year at the University of California. When she divorced her husband after graduating two years later, she estimated her savings around $50,000.

Here’s something else to consider: If a student marries before entering college, the couple’s combined income would be the number used by the school’s financial aid office.

Obviously, two teenagers are bound to bring in considerably less than their parents. So, they’d be up for a much bigger piece of the financial aid pie.

So far, schools haven’t been running up the red flag about an increased number of married students.

But it’s worth noting whypaytuition.com offers to arrange a “marriage of convenience,” claiming on their website: “The easiest way to obtain free tuition is to get out from under your parents financial umbrella and fall into the college’s low-income aid category.”

Marrying to save on tuition isn’t breaking the law — but is it wrong?

Let us know what you think in the comments section below.

And don’t forget to follow us on Twitter!

First, a recent study found students using Twitter to communicate with faculty and classmates earned higher grades — half a point higher, to be exact — than those who didn’t. Reason? Using Twitter engaged students in the learning process.

Then there is a Faculty Focus survey, which looked at how approximately 1,400 college faculty are using Twitter and found:

• The number of professors using Twitter jumped nearly 5% since last year, accounting for more than one-third of respondents.
• The number of respondents who never used Twitter fell by almost 9%
• The most common instructional uses of Twitter include communicating with students and serving as a learning tool in class.

Here’s what some professors are doing:

At the University of Texas in Dallas, history professor Monica Rankin uses Twitter to post students’ questions on a large screen in class. The benefit? Increased student participation, she says.

At Vermont’s Champlain College, business professor Elaine Young encourages students to use Twitter as a way to build their professional network.

In his social media class at University of California-Berkeley, Howard Rheingold shares info with students on Twitter that’s not on his syllabus – readings notes and videos, for example.

He calls his Twitter usage “student-to-teacher-to-student ambient office hours,” according to  U.S. News & World Report.

While it seems Twitter is slowly finding its place in higher ed, there are still some who consider it little more than a time waster.

What do you think? Let us know in the comments section below.

Enrollment in computer science and engineering programs has been rising significantly at many top U.S. universities. The reason: Corporate recruitment of computer science grads has remained steady throughout the economic downturn, and students are seeing the possibility of a substantial payday when they leave school.

Stanford University claims a 40% jump in students declaring themselves as computer science majors. Other colleges seeing an influx of applications include University of Illinois (26%), Carnegie Mellon University (14%) and Georgia Tech (5%).

At University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, last year’s grads received 2.3 job offers and starting salaries over $72,000 on average. Those offers aren’t just from computer science firms – the financial sector, insurance companies and defense contractors are all showing interest in computer science grads.

Computer courses have also gained popularity for students not seeking out IT jobs after college. Biology, medicine and chemistry students are making sure to include an IT class as the discipline invades life sciences. Meanwhile, business students are adding computer science classes as a backup, now that the luster of banking careers has dimmed.

Though not quite the enrollment boom of the dot-com era, schools like University of California at Berkeley don’t expect the numbers to decrease anytime soon, and are developing new courses and industry partnerships for undergrads.

Tell us how your school’s computer science department is meeting increased demands in the comments section below.

• In 2007-08, the number of students jumped 8.5% compared to the year before.
• The number increased a drastic 77% compared to 1987-88.

And what are the students getting from the experience of traveling overseas?

Michael Cowan, executive director of the University of California’s Education Abroad Program, told the Wall Street Journal that a student can “really come to terms with how he or she navigates an unfamiliar world, particularly in places where a different language is dominant.”

Taking a student out of his or her comfort zone can result in an experience that encourages growth and maturity.

But there is a downside to traveling abroad — namely, the cost.

• There’s the extra expense that goes hand-in-hand with travel
• The value of the dollar doesn’t always hold up against foreign currencies.
• Specific cities — such as Paris or London — can be very costly to live in.

Do the benefits outweigh the costs? Let us know what you think in the comments section below.

Three female high school wrestlers chose to attend the University of California, Davis, so they could participate in the school’s wrestling program.

UCD didn’t have separate wrestling teams for men and women. The females practiced with the men and enjoyed the various benefits of varsity status, but they competed only against other females and wrestled under different rules.

When UCD eliminated all women from the team during the 2000-2001 academic year, the females wrestlers protested. UCD’s response: You’re welcome to come back to the team – as long as you can beat male wrestlers in your weight class, using men’s rules.

That didn’t sit too well with the female wrestlers, who sued under Title IX for alleged denial of equal athletic opportunities. They also claimed an equal protection violation.

A lower court ruled against the female wrestlers, saying the Title IX claims failed because the wrestlers sued before giving UCD notice and a chance to fix any alleged program deficiencies.

But a federal appeals court reversed, concluding that prior notice wasn’t required. Importantly, it also said UCD failed to prove it had “a history and continuing practice of program expansion” that demonstrated Title IX compliance. The appeals court also reversed the lower court’s decision to reject the equal protection claim.

The case was sent back to the district court for further proceedings.

Cite: Mansourian v. Regents of the University of California.

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The University of California does not approve high school religious or ethics courses unless they “treat the study of religion or ethics from the standpoint of scholarly inquiry, rather than in a manner limited to one denomination or viewpoint.”

The school says the policy is needed because the study of religion is multidisciplinary and should not focus on one tradition or point of view.

An association of Christian schools, a Christian school and five of the Christian school’s students sued, claiming the policy violated the Free Speech Clause, the Free Exercise Clause, the Establishment Clause and the Equal Protection Clause.

A federal appeals court disagreed. It said the plaintiffs did not show how the policy could lead to the suppression of protected speech. The policy does not stop high schools from teaching what they want, and it does not prevent high school students from taking any course they want to take, the court reasoned.

The evidence showed the university rejected some religious or ethics courses not because they included a religious viewpoint but because they were not college preparatory, lacked necessary information or materials, or had other procedural defects.

Cite: Ass’n of Christian Schools Int’l v. Stearns.

Should colleges have the right to discount high school courses based on their religious content? Tell us what you think in the comments section below.

Students across California are not happy with the recent approval of a whopping 32% increase in undergraduate tuition fees at University of California schools. The rate is set to rise by nearly $600 per semester in January and another $1,300 next fall.

A group of students at the University of California, Davis gathered to protest the hike. They were joined by some faculty members and other university employees.

When they refused to leave the school’s administration building, law enforcement — including police in riot gear — were called in. Fifty-two students were arrested and taken into custody.

University officials promised to arrange a meeting between students and budget officials. But some students concede the decision to hike fees, an effect of the state’s budget crisis, isn’t likely to be reversed.

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Colleges from coast to coast are being deluged by alums in need of career coaching. Here are some stats from various career centers based on this past academic year, according to Forbes.com:

• Brandeis University has seen a 30% jump in requests for help from alums older than 35
• Appointments at the University of California have increased 33%
• University of Illinois has received 50% more phone calls
• It hasn’t been uncommon for there to be 40 people still sitting in the waiting room at New York University at closing time.

The large numbers aren’t easy for schools to accommodate – and what are they getting in return?

Most are banking on these alums “giving back,” in every sense of the word, once they land jobs.

To that end, here’s what some colleges are doing to handle the increased numbers:

• An HR professional works with alums at no cost twice a week at Fordham University and holds monthly workshops on using technology to search for jobs.
• At NYU, students have been trained as volunteer career counselors. The school also brings in HR pros – from companies that typically recruit there – to talk to alums.

Is your school seeing more alums coming to your campus for career advice? Let us know in the comments section below.

But a new study is pointing to some surprisingly hot career trends. 

A study from the University of California San Diego Extension lists these 12 careers as the hottest for today’s college graduates:

1)     Casual Game Development: About 200 million people play casual games online every month. It’s one of the fastest growing areas of the video game industry.

2)     Clinical trials design and management for oncology: Specially, pharmaceutical drug and medical device development.

3)     Data Mining: For businesses in every industry, it’s all about information – who’s using which services and products. Analyzing this data, gives businesses a compass for their own offerings.

4)     Computer Software Engineering: This is expected to be one of the fastest growing careers for the next seven years.

5)     Web Feature Writing: As newspapers are vanishing, online publications are growing.

6)     Geriatric Healthcare: As Baby Boomers get older, there’s a greater need for nursingand home healthcare.

7)     Graphic Design for Mobile Media: 10% of Americans use the Internet or video via a mobile device every week. Web site design is big.

8)     Occupational Health and Safety: Careers in this field are expected to increase 9% over the next few years.

9)     Specialized Spanish/English Translation: Law, medicine and business are looking for people bilingual in Spanish and English.

10)  Sustainable Business Practices and the Greening of all Jobs: This is about meeting compliance and regulation changes as well as growth opportunities in going green.

11)  Teaching Adult Learners: With the economy down, adult education is up. Private education was one of only two industries that’s seen job growth in 2009.

12)  Teaching English as a Foreign Language: There’s an availability of teaching jobs abroad as well as at home for those who can teach English as a second language and English as a foreign language.

Are these career trends affecting academics at your school? Let us know in the comments section below.