Even as endowments tanked, employees were laid off, and tuition bills were hiked in the face of decimated 401(k)s and home values, the presidents of the "top" (whatever that means) private college and universities in the United States still managed to take home 6.5% more cash in 2008 than they did in 2007.

Take a look at the list of the highest paid college presidents:

Shirley Ann Jackson, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute - $1,598,247
David J. Sargent, Suffolk University -- $1,496,593
Steadman Upham, University of Tulsa -- $1,428,275
Richard S. Meyers, Webster University -- $1,429,738

It's hard for me to imagine why anyone should get $1,598,247 for running Hartford, CT-based Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. Given that school's student body of just 5,394 undergraduates, that works out to nearly $300 per student flowing directly into the pocket of the president. Perhaps that explains the 2009-2010 sticker price of $39,165 -- and the fact that 70% of students graduate with an average of $30,375 in debt -- nearly 50% higher than the national average among college graduates.

Look, I don't doubt that these college presidents provide value to the schools they work at -- mainly in the form of fundraising. But at a time when so many of their students are struggling and debt loads are ballooning, it would be nice to see them take a break from pay increases. Sadly, that didn't happen.

On reason that large colleges -- especially public colleges -- generally offer a good deal is that administrative costs scale well: A school with 10 times as many students will generally have far lower per capita administrative costs.

Thursday, October 29, is a date many of you would have circled on your calendar... if you still circled things on paper calendars. It's the day SAT scores for the test taken October 12 are available online.

Over at Washington Monthly, Stephen Burd takes an extended look at one of the biggest -- and least reported on -- financial crises facing young people: unethical for-profit college foisting massive debt loads on their students. These debt loads often carry exorbitant interest rates and lack any consumer protections whatsoever.

The stories Burd tells are egregious: Slick, misleading advertising luring prospective suckers students into meetings with admissions officers -- glorified salespeople straight out of Glengarry Glen Ross. The admissions people then lie to students about the benefits of the program, and sign them up for high-interest student loans without explaining the terms.

In the months before Chris Smith graduated from Missouri State University in 2002, his classmates were doing the networking and other things that soon-to-be college graduates do in looking for a job.

Smith, however, didn't have the time. While others were out job hunting, Smith was out working at a job he didn't get paid for: He played football for the university.

Are you in your 40s and trying to decide how to reinvent your life, as well as rebuild your 401(K) in time for retirement after its been devastated by the recession? You're not alone.

Many women in their forties are now trying to restart careers, whether it's because of a job loss, it's returning to work after taking time off to have a family or it's deciding to put your career first after your husband built his.

I definitely fit into the last category. With my first marriage, we had to decide whose career would come first. My husband got the priority and I had to move with his career moves. My resume was filled with a lot of dead end jobs as I moved every three or four years.

I needed to jump-start a career at the age of 39 and decided to go back for my MBA. Finding work in my early 40s wasn't easy, but with the MBA I was able to restart a career. Now I've got 25 books on the market and my own business. Going back to school allowed me to find and fulfill my passion.

If you're looking to restart your career, you're probably wondering what you should do next? What jobs should you consider? WalletPop was given an exclusive look at an upcoming story in More Magazine on Oct. 27 about the best career moves for women over 40.

Think your kid's college bill is pricey? Think again. For the second year in a row, Sarah Lawrence College has the dubious distinction of being the nation's most expensive place to attend college -- a whopping $54,410 for the current 2009-10 school year, including tuition, plus room and board, according to data compiled by CampusGrotto.com.

Of course, for that price, students get the distinction of attending one of the finest colleges in the country. Most of the colleges in the 100 most expensive colleges ranking are private liberal-arts universities in the Northeast.

CampusGrotto notes that while the current school year saw one of the smallest increases in costs in decades, expenses still rose 4.3%. By contrast, the annual rate of inflation in the United States fell 1.3% in September. Many of the colleges on the list now cost around $50,000 a year to attend.

Georgetown University sophomore Charley Cooper is absolutely swamped.

Between homework, a part-time job, and an illness in the family, he just can't possibly find time to do the tasks that every single other college student in America does for himself. The 19-year old posted an ad on the school's student employment Web site, advertising for someone to help with "some of my everyday tasks."

He's looking for someone to help him three to seven hours per week at a rate of $10 to $12 per hour. From the listing:

The College Board released its annual report on tuition for the 2008-2009 school year and, no big surprise, it's getting worse.

According to the Associated Press, "Average tuition at four-year public colleges in the U.S. climbed 6.5 percent, or $429, to $7,020 this fall as schools apologetically passed on much of their own financial problems, according to an annual report from the College Board, released Tuesday. At private colleges, tuition rose 4.4 percent, or $1,096, to $26,273."

But just so that we have the frame of reference right, we need to be very clear on what exactly the College Board is -- because most people don't quite understand. According to AP, the College Board is a "not-for-profit, which promotes college access and owns the SAT tries to strike a balance. It tries to sound the alarm about rising prices without scaring students into thinking college is out of reach."

Here's a new one: Ithaca College accepted too many students for its new class of freshmen -- so to make room on campus, it paid some of them to go away for a year and come back in the next class.

Thirty-one students received as much as $10,000 each to delay college by one year.

A representative of Ithaca College commented on The New York Times blog that "the hope was to find students who could benefit from the extra year by working in service positions or earning more money to pay for their college experience."

What a wonderful idea. Here are a couple of problems with it:

• Students who are planning to receive need-based financial aid will see their eligibility decline precipitously if they take a year off and work anything resembling full-time.
• Ithaca College has been raising its tuition and fees precipitously in recent years. For the 2008-2009 school year, rates went up 5.99%. That means that students who put off college for an extra year will pay more for college every year than they would have had they enrolled immediately.
• Putting off college delays entry into the workforce by a year -- resulting in a year of lost wages.

When you combine those three factors, $10,000 is a pittance compared to the enormous financial costs that come with putting off college for a year.

I do some tutoring in Spanish and essay writing for high school and community college students, and my heart goes out to them for what they're facing right now -- constant tuition hikes, a scramble to get the student loans and classes they need, and the fear of graduating with a load of debt and no job prospects whatsoever.

So when I came across this Washington Monthly article on a company that only charges $99 a month for online courses in entry-level subjects, I sent it to a few students to get their take. Here were a few of their comments:

"Sounds like this could save me and my mom a lot of money."

"If this article is right, I'll learn more this way than by sitting in a hall with hundreds of other students."

"Are these really accredited courses? Hell, with the help my school is giving me with getting into required courses, I'll try anything!"

Meghann Reed recently returned to the workforce as an event consultant after a stint as a stay-at-home mom. Although she'd planned to continue caring for her two daughters full-time, family finances pushed her back to work. Like many women, the Corning, N.Y., woman is conflicted about being a working mom and sometimes feels guilty or angry about the thought of leaving her children, Mykaela and Savannah.

"In a perfect world I would be a stay-at-home mom until both of my girls were in school. In fact, I would love to have a third, but have that on the back burner for now because I would want to stay home for the first year and at the moment it wouldn't be possible," Reed says. "My 2-year-old still cries every day when I leave and my 3-year old has become very clingy. It isn't easy."

Right now, while high school seniors are being encouraged to work on college applications, 40% of parents should be asking themselves whether their son or daughter is a good risk for college next fall.

That's right, 40% of parents should be asking whether college is the best next step. Then, the hard part -- they should be talking with their sons and daughters about it before investing --or worse, borrowing -- college tuition money.

Here's why. According to the U.S. Department of Education, among college freshmen who graduated in the bottom 40% of their high school class, 76 of 100 won't earn a college diploma, even if given 8-1/2 years.

Have you and your senior talked about options yet? Have you compared his thoughts to your own?

The University of California-San Francisco has come up with a creative way to hose its employees who have taken pay cuts and furloughs -- loan them their lost wages and charge interest upon repayment.

The "Special Temporary Furlough Employee Emergency Loan Program," which started Oct. 1, is being implemented with the intent of helping workers in an emergency situation.

But charging interest, currently at 3.66%, to borrow lost wages seems evil.

A story in The Public Press reports that the UCSF emergency loan fund isn't for paying rent or any bills that aren't "an unplanned emergency situation." Examples of emergency loans that qualify include a car breaking down unexpectedly, death or terminal illness of an immediate family member, paying a security deposit for an apartment after a divorce, domestic violence, sudden eviction or emergency non-elective surgery.

Not being able to afford to feed your family because your employer cut your wages and is a loan shark doesn't qualify as an emergency.

Along with paying interest on money they should have received in salary anyway, university employees are limited to taking a loan of up to the amount they saw their pay cut. Pay cuts ranged from 4% to 10% based on the 11 to 26 unpaid days that faculty and staff must take in the next year, with the first cuts seen in their Oct. 1 paychecks.

At least they get a fair amount of time to pay off the advance. Loan payments are deducted from monthly paychecks over 24 months, plus interest. The current 3.66% interest rate will change in November, although UCSF officials haven't said if it will go up or down.

The temporary programs ends Aug. 31, 2010, which should hopefully give UCSF employees enough time to look for new jobs.

The personal seat license concept, where sports teams sell the right to buy a ticket to a specific seat in their venue, has revolutionized stadium building, inspiring a even more visionary way to make money from nothing; the Endowment Seating Program (ESP). This new offering from the University of California allows patrons to buy a seat in the stadium, including admission, for the next 40- 50 years at once, while potentially receiving a huge tax write-off.

I recently spoke at a financial literacy event for college students and listened as the speakers -- respected financial experts -- discussed the necessity of credit and how important it is for young people to build up their FICO scores.

I don't agree with this. I think it's dangerously bad advice, and it actually terrifies me that it's the conventional wisdom propagated in what passes for unbiased financial literacy training for young people.

The potential negative consequences of using a credit card while in college -- overspending, running up debt and finance charges, collection calls, lawsuits, a bad credit score -- are so much more bad than the potential positive outcomes are good that I would argue that most college students should not have credit cards. Telling kids to get credit cards in college to build credit is like telling people to jump in front of steamrollers to pick up pennies.

A 20-year-old called in on Dave Ramsey's show the other night and asked about this, and Dave's response was classic Dave. Please: Watch the clip and send it to your kid. And if you have friend with kids in college facing these same issues, send it to them too.