Ivy League On The Cheap
JON STEWART, HOST, THE DAILY SHOW WITH JON STEWART: We're power washing the Gulf of Mexico with oil. I thought we put that thing out with a giant concrete dome and sealed it all up.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The giant dome experiment ended in a giant failure.</s>STEWART: What? Putting a dome over something you want to forget didn't work. It worked so well for Detroit and the Lions.</s>ROBERTS: Carol Costello would love that.</s>ROMANS: Oh yes.</s>ROBERTS: Little orphan Annie can start counting her tomorrows because after 86 years, Tribune Media Services is taking the comic strip off of the newspaper funny pages. Annie's last indicated strip will appear on June the 13th.</s>ROMANS: It could be a real life Cliff Hanger for the crime series "Law and Order." A new report says NBC may cancel the show after 20 seasons. That would be just shy of surpassing "Gunsmoke," the TV's longest running drama. The network will announce its fall lineup on Monday. We will find out for sure.</s>ROBERTS: If you sell it, they will come. Iowa's field of dreams made famous in the 1989 movie is now on the market. The owners say they love the ball field built on an Iowa corn field but they are ready to retire. The asking price if you are interested and the ball field also comes with 193 acres of farmland, is $5.4 million which seems a little high, because we were checking in 2006, Iowa farmland was going for $3,200 an acre.</s>ROMANS: I don't know what it is going for now but a lot has happened.</s>ROBERTS: Well, I don't think it has gone up, like ten times.</s>ROMANS: But they built that in four days. Did you know that? The movie people built that it in four days, and since then it has been lovingly tended by this couple. Interesting. Okay, now, you can get your gold to go. Check out a new ATM kiosk at the Emritz Palace Hotel in Abu Dhabi. You feed it cash and you get small gold coins or gold bars in return. The machine actually monitors gold prices in real time. The manufacturer says soon it is going to be able to take bank cards too.</s>ROBERTS: Now, for an A.M. Original, something that you will see only on AMERICAN MORNING. Admission to one of the country's elite colleges may seem like a pipe dream for many students.</s>ROMANS: But, no-loan aide program are giving new hope to families in need. Stephanie Elam is following this for us. Good morning, Stephanie. This is fascinating. Some of the elite colleges are doing this. They are promising packages for families that you won't have to pay back. It is grants and work study.</s>STEPHANIE ELAM, CNN BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: It is really amazing. We went and profiled a student at Princeton University to find out more about this. Imagine, you think coming out of school, my family makes less than $60,000 a year. I'm not going to be able to afford a school like Princeton. But then, there are these programs to really help people out. Take a look.</s>ELAM (voice-over): For Berenice Jimenez, it is basic math. $47,000, that is the sticker price for tuition, room and board at Princeton University. But her family only makes about $50,000 a year.</s>BERENICE JIMENEZ, GRADUATING SENIOR, PRINCETON UNIVERSITY: It is just amazing, just how much everything -- how expensive it is.</s>ELAM: Clearly, the college senior needed a lot of help.</s>ROBIN MOSCATO, DIRECTOR OF FINANCIAL AID, PRINCETON UNIVERSITY: Students from families that have incomes under $60,000 are generally what we describe as our highest need students.</s>ELAM: And that help came in the form of a no-loan grant from Princeton.</s>JIMENEZ: The grant I have is about $40,000, which covers most of the tuition. That leaves about my family contribution about to be a little over $5,000, which is still a pretty big hit to my family, to my parents, especially. So my federal work study is $3,000. That basically pays for my school books, the clothing that I need to buy and all the little miscellaneous items. My parents then have to pay for me, $2,000, which is way better than $45,000.</s>ELAM: In 2001, Princeton was the first university to offer no- loan aid packages. Now 43 universities across the country have followed suit. That's according to the Institute of College Access and Success. Hundreds of Princeton's undergrads are getting help, just like she Jimenez.</s>MOSCATO: You are talking about 400 students in each graduating class with a full tuition grant, it really makes the atmosphere on campus feel much more reflective of the country as a whole rather than of an elite, private type of atmosphere.</s>ELAM: As for Jimenez, who is eyeing medical school, she knows her days of being loan free are limited.</s>ELAM (on camera): And when you come out of Princeton, just to be clear, you are coming out of here debt free, right?</s>JIMENEZ: Absolutely. When I hit medical school, I know I am going to get hit and I am going to get hit hard. But, for now, at least I don't have the undergraduate debt to pile on top of that. That is absolutely gone.</s>ELAM: So, imagine that. You come out of a school like Princeton and you didn't think you could afford a school, and then you come out with no debt at all. What's interesting here as well, is that they say a lot of these Ivy League schools point out that if you are able to qualify for a no-loan program like this, that you actually might find it is cheaper than going to your State University or college. That's what's really making the huge difference here.</s>ROMANS: And the hard part is getting in. You know, it once was, you know, the real hard part was getting in. And then the harder part was paying for it. Now, they are trying to find a way so that kids who do get in, who deserve to have this great education, can get it. But who pay for it in the end?</s>ELAM: That is the thing. This grant money has to come from some place. And it is really an amalgam of places that this money is coming from. You are talking about endowments, you have got annual giving, you have got scholarships, you have got some federal grants as well and operating funds and Robin Moscato who we talked to there at Princeton, told us that this is actually for this year, a pool of $102 million that will be reaching out to 2900 undergraduate students to help them get this money and get these grants. So, that's really what's amazing about this.</s>ROMANS: Endowments, that's interesting. Because a lot of people may give a lot of money back to the school. They say, hey I want this to go to specifically to help kids pay for this program. I don't want this to go to a building -</s>ELAM: Exactly. I want it to go directly here. And the other interesting thing about this too is that, people are looking to get to school. You have got to do your research and contact the financial aid department at these schools. You might find out more. Princeton has said they have had to reach out more to find these students, to bring them on there, to get this economic diversity on their campus. Because so many students just automatically go, well, there is no way I can afford that education. And really, they could.</s>ROBERTS: All right, Stephanie Elam with a great story this morning. Thank you.</s>ROMANS: Okay, once you start him up, he will never stop. Mick Jagger and the Rolling Stones, they are re-releasing an album and they have a new documentary.</s>ROBERTS: Front man Mick Jagger sitting down with our own Larry King to discuss the band's decades of success.</s>LARRY KING, CNN HOST, LARRY KING LIVE: How do you account for the longevity of the Stones as a success?</s>MICK JAGGER, THE ROLLING STONES: Well, I think these guys are very lucky. You always need a lot of luck. And I think that they were in the right place at the right time and we -- when we work, we worked very hard. So you need all those things. It is no good just being hardworking. But you've got to be hardworking on your game and be lucky.</s>ROBERTS: They have been doing that for nigh unto five decades now?</s>ROMANS: Playing pretty hard, too.</s>ROBERTS: Good for them. Yes, from time to time. You can see the prime time exclusive with Mick Jagger next Tuesday. It will be only on LARRY KING LIVE. Bad scene in Thailand. Troops fire on protestors near U.S. and Japanese embassies, we have a live report from Bangkok coming right up. Stay with us. Twenty-seven minutes after the hour.