Rising Costs and Rising Rewards

Average tuition, room, and board at colleges has more than doubled since 1990, according to the U.S. National Center for Education Statistics. But -- consider this from the U.S. Census Bureau: the average annual 2008 earnings of workers 18 and older with an advanced degree --$83,144. Those without a high school diploma earned  $21,023. All this and more stats from the Washington Post's Valerie Strauss . $7.4 billion spent on back-to-school shopping! Read more here.