Cell Phones and College Tuition

By Steve Baker

In 1978, my college tuition was about $1,200 per year. In 1985 my first cell phone also cost me $1,200, and its sole function was that it could make phone calls -- at about a buck per minute. (Motorola's first cell phone hit the market at $3,995!) But something interesting happened to both products on the way to the year 2012... Today, my daughter (and her parents) are staring down college tuitions in the range of $22,000 to $40,000 per year to prepare for her declared career interest. My new iPhone has moved in exactly the opposite direction -- purchased for only $199. But that's not the whole story. My iPhone has a thousand times more computing power than my first $4,000 computer. It also shoots hi-def video much better than my first camera, which cost me more than $1,000. It will hold and play back over 1,000 songs and music videos. My first CD player cost me $400 and would hold only one compact disc (10-15 songs) and was.... (Read Full Article)