Interesting. Considering that tuition at even affordable state schools is 10x that and gasoline is 14x that... talk about wage inflation not catching up. Assuming no taxes, it would have only took 156 hours of work to pay for a semester; with 20 hour work weeks, that's about 8 weeks of working. A minimum wage earner today would need to work 666 hours to afford the typical $5K/semester college tuition. That's 33 20-hour work weeks! Given that you need to work more than half the year to pay for a single semester, it's impossible to work part-time to pay for a college education today.