First, the bad news: Tuition at America's public colleges has increased by 8.3 percent over the past year. Now the good news: Your college degree is still worth every penny. In your dreams, I mean! In real life your degree is worth exactly one penny.

Even though North Dakota's prone to disastrous floods and blizzards and maybe not even a real state, and even though a college degree is possibly worthless in today's jobless job market, lots of Ameri-teens are going to college in North Dakota anyhow. It's so cheap!