Students Eye Cheaper Colleges as Crisis Deepens

As the semester goes on, we wonder how many students are looking at the next semester and wondering what the heck they're going to do. Generally, "back to school" is one of the options for people who lose their jobs, but in this climate, how viable is that option? This article suggests that more than half of high school students are looking at less prestigious schools than before, due to financial considerations:

For high school seniors like KC Martin of Englewood, Colo., even a four-year public university feels out of reach. She says she'll probably go to a community college, a decision she reached with her parents. "It's a tough one, because I want to go to a four-year school, but it's expensive," she says.

Community colleges typically swell during economic downturns, but with the financial crisis and the loss of state revenues, it will be daunting for some to accommodate what could be unprecedented demand, says Norma Kent, spokeswoman for the American Association of Community Colleges in Washington. Without funding to hire more faculty or build labs, "there's a de facto cap," she says, despite their mission to be accessible to everyone.