Honduras

In a landmark decision last week, Hondurasí Supreme Court repealed the law that regulates the amount of tuition and other fees private schools and colleges are allowed to charge per student. The decision was undertaken thanks largely to the efforts of FENIEPH, an organization of private schools, which has criticized the law (known as Bill 106-97) as being unconstitutional.

Shortly after the law was struck down, FENIEPH announced across-the-board tuition hikes for next year.

United States

Students can now bid on college tuition thanks to a new Web site called eCollegebid (www.ecollegebid.org). However, college admissions officials warn that the site could encourage students to gravitate towards the lowest-bidding colleges without regard for quality.

eCollegebid is modeled after Priceline.com, which allows consumers to purchase everything from airline tickets to groceries online. Economists say it was only a matter of time before the concepts of e-commerce were applied to higher education.

Here is how it works: Students name what theyíre willing to pay for their higher education per year and then plug in their grades, test scores and information pertaining to financial aid eligibility. If a college is interested in a particular student, it will offer a certain amount of financial aid up front before the formal application process begins.

Each college has to pay $2,000 to sign on with eCollegebid.org, while the service is provided free of charge to students. Although the creator of the new service, Tedd Kelly, was hoping to have 50 schools in his stable by the new millenium, only six colleges had signed up with eCollegebid at year-end.

The site is geared mainly towards some of the smaller, lesser-known colleges that canít attract enough students through traditional marketing techniques and want to beef up enrollments.