It's not too hard to get someone to give money to a school to name a building, or even a room in a building (like a computer lab). But what if you're short on office supplies but have many buildings? Some students at Northern Illinois have an idea:

If this university�s budget doesn�t have room to expand the funds it spends on paper, perhaps NIU administrators should be encouraging NIU alumni ... to make donations for paper - an education must - rather than $2.5 million toward an alumni center that students won�t step foot in until years down the line, when they are alumni.

Stephen notes, "The problem is that there are no naming opportunities for paper bins." We've been thinking that it would be cool to raise money for computer labs by having the computers come up with a screen thanking the sponsor every time a student walked in. But student labs are paid for out of student activity fees, a tax that few see as such and that goes unrecognized.

Some departments here are requiring students to purchase the "bubble sheets" for their exams in the first week of class in large lecture classes and turning them in to the department. The number required, we're told, exceeds the number of exams.