Everybody loves a contest, especially when it involves winning a case of ramen noodles. ClassesandCareers.com has launched a new blog called College Life particularly for college students and college students at heart. To kick things off properly, we are holding the Student Scavenger Contest 2009,which challenges students to present as many ideas on how to get free or cheap chow as possible. Whoever turns in the most ideas will win one $100 restaurant gift card, a $200 Walmart gift Card, and a case of ramen noodles.

We dreamed up this crazy challenge one day while reminiscing about all the wild things we did during school to get three square meals a day. I used to go to fast food joints at closing time and offer the manager all the change I had in exchange for all the stuff they hadn’t sold that day. For $4.27, I could get two days worth of Big Macs, McRibs, french fries, and Quarter Pounders with Cheese. Sad, yes. Desperate, absolutely. But it makes for a wonderful yarn later.

Another wonderful one I heard of was a gentleman who, finding his cupboard contained only a can of corn niblets and a tiny mound of dust bunnies, called his friends together for a potluck. He made sure to call the best cooks around. When the potluck came, he heated up his corn niblets, adding in a small lump of butter, which he borrowed from his roommate, for good measure. His friends brought lasagna, bratwurst sausages, and a heap of other delectables. All went home gorged and content. Some even left some leftovers with our protagonist. And our protagonist lived to fight another day. Truly, he was a Student Scavenger, inventive, sly, and a tad bit unprincipled.

So that’s what this contest is all about: commemorating all the crazy things we resort to in order to get some food when money is stretched. You can tweet your ideas or post them on Facebook as long as you link back to our blog. You can leave your ideas as a comment on our blog. You can even film yourself demonstrating your idea and post it on YouTube for a bonus. The most entries wins, with videos getting extra weight.

If you want to join the contest and earn the honor of being a genuine Student Scavenger, go to the contest page to get started.

President Obama’s administration is planning on simplifying the federal college aid form.  It currently consists of 153 questions, which many families give up on before finishing.  President Obama is seeking to make the application more user-friendly so more students may attend higher education.

Arne Duncan, Education Secretary announced the changes last Wednesday.  They are trying new avenues, in order to boost college enrollment among low and middle income students.  Duncan said "We need to educate our way to a better economy."  The new form will make the process easier for students and families applying for federal financial aid.

Due to the economic downturn, many students and their families are seeking financial aid.  After the recession the number of applications increased 12 percent to more than 16 million.  In 2007, 58 percent of college undergraduates applied for aid, and 47 percent received it.

Due to the high demand and the fact President Obama wants more people applying; the administration is trying to shorten the online Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA).  There will be two-thirds fewer screens to fill out.  There will also be a Web application where families can access their tax data already sent to the IRS. 

This tax information will help families answer the questions on the form.  Paperwork shouldn’t stand between students and a college degree.  The administration has a goal set and that is to increase the Pell Grants for low-income students by 75 percent over the next ten years.

There is money out there for education and it just got easier.  Because of the stimulus, over $17 billion has been designated for Pell Grants.  The Federal Perkins Loan Program will also increase to $6 billion in loans every year over the next decade.  There has never been a better time to get an education so sign up today and improve your life.

Ivy League Schools are getting dangerously wealthy.  Princeton’s new student residence was a billionaire’s mansion that has been converted into a dorm.  Meg Whitman, CEO of Ebay whom the residence will be named after, gave $30 million dollars towards projected costs to renovate the building.  The administrators then decided to tear up the budget and the architect went to town.  This dorm has triple-glazed mahogany casement windows made of leaded glass; and the 10 building complex ended up costing Princeton $136 million. That amounts to $272,000 for each of the 500 undergraduates who will live there.

This extravagance shows the prosperity of America’s elite and private schools.  The eight Ivy League universities and other academic schools such as Stanford and MIT are elite institutions that excel socially and academically.  They are known for their great proportion of wealth to their size in comparison to other higher education institutions.  Most students that attend Ivy League schools are wealthy and they continue to get wealthier. 

These schools are not only turning campus life into a luxury but dumping huge sums of money into enlarging their role in research.  Many are developing science centered campuses, adding more top notch faculty, and shrinking class sizes, while increasing financial aid for lower-income students.

While these schools are gold plating their campuses, America’s public institutions of higher learning are struggling.  Public institutions educate 75% of America’s college students, but are struggling with rising enrollments and dwindling budgets.  Even prestigious public universities are trying to fend off richly financed school departments from trying to steal their best faculty and their research grants.  Public schools are being drained for the ultra-elite.

The gap between the Ivies and everyone else has never been wider.  Stanford University alone received $911 million in gifts in 2006.   The interesting thing is that the school a student graduates from really does play a role in the wealth they will accrue during their working life.  Elite graduates tend to become leaders in their sectors and with that comes top dollar.  Then the cycle will continue, because these leaders and wealthy individuals will give large endowments to the institution they graduated from.

This is a never ending cycle and it will continue to widen the gap between top private schools and public schools.  So not only are public schools being drained of their best students and faculty, but they are missing out on the research grant money that is being funneled into elite schools.   Therefore the talent and the money will remain and continue to grow for the very rich schools as public schools will try to scrape by.