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Source: Yes Magazine

Do you know a college student? Chances are, that person is going to graduate with an alarming amount of debt: Students in the class of 2008 graduated owing an average of $23,200 in student loans. It’s now a given that you “need” a college degree to achieve middle-class status in the United States. But we also know that the middle class isn’t what it used to be. So, is a college education worth the money?

The question plagues many Common Security Club members, whether we are students, graduates, parents, or grandparents. How can we save (or borrow) enough to pay for top level schooling, when private college tuition-plus room and board-now runs about $45,000 year? Parents wonder whether they should compromise their retirement savings; grandparents are shocked at the cost; teens have little to compare it to, and may be quite unprepared to make use of such an expensive investment. read more

Source: The New Internationalist

I am standing on sacred ground. Baghdad is a sharif city, with the graves of many Sufi saints buried in its much-contested soil. Near them are the graves of the Jewish prophets Ezekiel and Joshua. South of here, in Ur, the home of Abraham shares a barren plane with the site of the now reconstructed Sumerian ziggurat. And St Thomas sojourned in Basra, en route between Jerusalem and India.

But my friend Mohammed – a young Iraqi journalist who came of age during the invasion and the worst years of sectarian fighting – tells me, ‘We don’t visit the shrines so much these days. We are too busy visiting the graves of our loved ones.’ read more