Academic Earth

The top two are Academic Earth and OpenCulture.com, both of which are sites dedicated to bringing educational materials to you, right where you need it most--at your computer. You'll get materials from MIT, Harvard, Yale, Berkley and Princeton, just to name a few. Lectures are organized by topic, and are uber-easy to search. G'head, study up. Thank me later. I don't mind.

The University of Nevada, Reno is known for the quality of its journalism school and the Mackay School of Earth Sciences and Engineering, according to the 2010 edition of "The Insider's Guide to the Colleges." However, the guide, compiled by the staff of the Yale Daily News, faults UNR for a "too limited student population" in which 82 percent come from Nevada high schools. While some students complain it's as if they're going to a bigger version of their high schools, one freshman said being with old high school friends made the transition easier, the guide states.

The guide was published before Nevada's Board of Regents voted to approve a 10 percent increase in tuition this fall for all of the state's seven higher education institutions, with another 10 percent increase scheduled in fall 2010. But tuition at Nevada's public colleges and universities traditionally has been low in comparison with other institutions in the Western region. The guide also points out that although UNR is a "dry" campus and fraternities and sororities are not allowed to serve alcohol, "students agree that it is 'definitely possible' to find alcohol at parties." Students who are 21 or older and those who have fake IDs "can look forward to wild nights of drinking, dancing and gambling in downtown Reno," the guide said.