Economy sending students back home to college - DONNA GORDON BLANKINSHIP, Associated Press

A few months ago, Rebecca Gottlieb faced a difficult choice: continue on at her $50,000-a-year private school in Massachusetts, or leave her new friends and life and enroll at a cheaper school near home in Washington. Gottlieb, 19, decided to transfer, dumping Tufts University for Western Washington University and joining the growing numbers of college students realizing that attending their dream school was no longer financially sustainable.