College Kids

HOLIDAY MEALS WITH ALL THE TRIMMINGS aren't all that difficult to pull off. It's all the other meals that are the problem for me. Time is at a premium during Christmas and New Year's, and part of the reason is that everyone wants to eat, and that requires cooking. There are cookie exchanges and office parties and neighborhood gatherings, all of which require you to prepare food. (Every time I say, "Can I bring anything?" I wish I had kept my mouth shut.) And then the kids come home from college, acting like they haven't eaten since fall break.

When Bill Clinton took the podium to address the country in January 1993, I was moved to tears. Here, then, was my first president. My parents had had all the presidents up to that point. Here was a man of my generation. Married to the working mother of a school-aged child who was his educational and professional equal. To someone like me. Mr. Clinton acknowledged the passing of the "greatest generation" when he thanked outgoing President George H.W. Bush for his 50 years of service to the country.

LILLY IS BACK. And she's going to college. At the age of 71, no less. Lilly Pulitzer, the Palm Beach, Fla., socialite who made a national sensation out of a simple shift dress in the 1960s, has returned to the fashion front page. And it's the college kids who are putting her there. The resurgence of the whimsical florals in watermelon pink and green is no news to the fashionistas, who gave the dowager queen of preppy-dom a standing ovation at the spring 2003 runway shows. But the trickle-down to the masses is under way and much in evidence during a recent visit to Washington & Lee University in Lexington, Va. -- a college old enough and just far enough south to be steeped in tradition.

From Liz Atwood: I can't believe I've come to the point where I actually would like to see the kids wasting their time playing video games.  What has driven me to this drastic change? Lately the kids have taken to wasting their time texting friends and posting pictures on Instagram and Twitter. Their new preoccupation with social media sets up a whole new challenge. In the past, I only needed to look at the rating on a game box to get a sense of whether the content was inappropriate.

College kids and condo dwellers often make strange bedfellows, but a futon just may be the common ground. Originally thought of as a sort of poor man's couch, futons are making quite an impact in the home-furnishings industry. Once used almost exclusively by dorm and first-apartment dwellers, futons are increasingly showing up in condominiums and single-family homes in guest rooms, TV rooms and even living rooms as alternatives to sleeper sofas. In some cases, they are being purchased as primary beds or couches.

A RECENT ARTICLE in the Philadelphia Inquirer made the point that today's cell-phoning, e-mailing and instant-messaging college students stay in touch with Mom and Dad on almost a daily basis. Almost universally, college administrators said they thought all this was bad -- for the students trying to live independently and for the parents who should let them. Since I e-mail, instant-message and cell-phone my college-aged children pretty much every day, I guess I disagree. I admit that I initiate most of the contact with news from home or cheerful messages on gloomy days or during exam weeks or gentle reminders about grades and study time.

COLLEGE PARK -- Being a college student in America is probably at times the best deal in the world. Imagine being surrounded by flashy cell phones that ring "Fur Elise" in the middle of a psychology lecture and laptop computers through which access to favorite clothing stores or sports highlights is just a button push away. Many students spend their nights at the local watering holes and some of their days going on excursions with friends while missing the lecture on the intricacies of supply-side economics.

When Bill Clinton took the podium to address the country in January 1993, I was moved to tears. Here, then, was my first president. My parents had had all the presidents up to that point. Here was a man of my generation. Married to the working mother of a school-aged child who was his educational and professional equal. To someone like me. Mr. Clinton acknowledged the passing of the "greatest generation" when he thanked outgoing President George H.W. Bush for his 50 years of service to the country.

When Virginia Gov. L. Douglas Wilder recently said he would "not object at all" to the random drug testing of college students, he was accused of being the worst thing you can accuse a person of being: a presidential candidate.Yep, the idea of testing college kids for illegal drug use is so silly, his critics said, that only a guy running for president could come up with it.Even Bob Martinez, the nation's drug czar, came out against it. Though Martinez supported widespread drug testing of state workers when he was governor of Florida, he now opposes the same tests for college students.

On a recent evening at Towson Place, the stores were teeming with an unusually frantic group of shoppers: parents and their college-bound progeny. Cramming their carts with merchandise, they cruised aisles filled with plastic, pastel-colored shower caddies, polka-dotted throw rugs and collap-sible shoe racks. They clung to coupons and scanned the shelves for bargains. When they found them, they piled their carts higher. And higher. "This is a marathon," said Baltimore resident Beth Ahearn, peering over a cart filled with flower-print bedding for her 18-year-old daughter, Molly, soon to be a freshman at Georgetown University.

Adam Raby, a Maryland native and UMBC graduate now living in Chicago, came up with the idea for the CushPad while watching his girlfriend fumble with his precious iPad, occasionally dropping it. He also got tired of looking for ways to prop the device up while he sat on the couch or in bed while trying to use it. So last fall, Raby, 29, tried his hand at building an encasement of foam that snugly holds an iPad. His prototype worked well, and he had a short run of 100 CushPads made by two Chicago manufacturers (hooray for American manufacturing!

Watch the video for "Loud" above. His raps have curse words and drug references in them. Kids, be careful! I've been duped by Mac Miller before. When he released "K.I.D.S.," the mixtape that first caught most rap blogs' attention, in August 2010, there was a sleazy charm to Mac's persona. He was the young slacker making no-cred-necessary rap songs about raging, sneakers and hooking up. It was superficial, but catchy and executed well-enough to find its way to the masses of high schoolers and college kids most interested in their Friday nights.

Thanks to credit card reforms kicking in next year, card issuers will have a tougher time getting teenagers on college campuses to apply for plastic without their parents' knowledge. But what about now? Students will arrive on campus next month, and card issuers will be there to greet them at many schools. Will card companies make one more big final push to sign up students? "Issuers will try to continue to market to college students between now and the time the legislation takes effect," says Bill Hardekopf, chief executive of LowCards.

Paying for college or professional school isn't getting any easier. According to collegeboard.com, most students and their families can expect to pay even more this year on tuition and fees and, on average, $371 to $406 additional for room and board a year, depending on the school. Although parents and students can limit their overall costs by buying used books and applying for financial aid, there are ways to save on housing as well. Renting an off-campus condo or apartment may seem like the most valid option when trying to save, but in the right situation, buying a house near campus -- even with the real estate market in a downturn -- is a viable alternative to shelling out thousands of dollars over the course of a few years without seeing any return.

Keiffer Mitchell, trying to give the boot to the mayor who once famously brandished a shoe, has resorted to footwear theatrics of his own. At a meeting with his campaign staff two weeks ago, Mitchell tossed his black dress shoes in the trash and - even more startling - unveiled his new look: dark business suit with work boots. "These are what I'm going to be wearing now because we have some work to do and we have a lot of you-know-what to go through," Mitchell recalls telling his staff.

Editor's note: Every Tuesday through the end of tax season, The Sun will run an edited transcript of Baltimoresun.com's weekly tax-advice column featuring three experts from the Hunt Valley accounting firm SC&H Group. My husband and I reside in Texas. I have a daughter that attended a university in Virginia after graduating from high school in 2006 and resided in the dorm. She worked a [part-time] job (two, to be exact) for a short while in Virginia during the year 2006. My husband and I are unsure if we can claim her as a dependent since she lived in the dorm.

Just because a college education is expensive does not mean it is worth much.We all know that a college degree no longer guarantees you a job, for instance.It used to guarantee you a certain amount of status -- the ability to say, "I are a college graduate," at a party was worth something -- but even that has now faded.The kids today who did not go to college, but went into the volunteer army instead, are now heroes. And they are going to whatever jobs there are and have all the good-looking dates when they get back from the Persian Gulf.

Adam Raby, a Maryland native and UMBC graduate now living in Chicago, came up with the idea for the CushPad while watching his girlfriend fumble with his precious iPad, occasionally dropping it. He also got tired of looking for ways to prop the device up while he sat on the couch or in bed while trying to use it. So last fall, Raby, 29, tried his hand at building an encasement of foam that snugly holds an iPad. His prototype worked well, and he had a short run of 100 CushPads made by two Chicago manufacturers (hooray for American manufacturing!

College kids and condo dwellers often make strange bedfellows, but a futon just may be the common ground. Originally thought of as a sort of poor man's couch, futons are making quite an impact in the home-furnishings industry. Once used almost exclusively by dorm and first-apartment dwellers, futons are increasingly showing up in condominiums and single-family homes in guest rooms, TV rooms and even living rooms as alternatives to sleeper sofas. In some cases, they are being purchased as primary beds or couches.

It's the best part of summer, the long, lovely passage into fall. A procession of lazy, golden days that my sandy-haired, gap-toothed little girl has been painting, small abstract masterpieces in tempera and crayon and glitter, reminiscent of Franz Kline or Willem de Kooning (his early glitter period). She put a sign out front, "Art for Sale," and charged 25 cents per painting. Cheap at the price. A teacher gave her this freedom to sit un-self-consciously and put paint on paper. A gentle, 6-foot-8 guy named Matt who taught art at her preschool.