I'm sure things are a bit different nowadays, but here's my college cost rundown: Attended a CA community college for 5 semesters @ $300 ea plus about $150 ea in books = $2250 Transferred to Cal Poly SLO for 11 quarters @ $750 ea plus about $250 ea in books = $11,000 Add in various school fees over the years (parking permits, student ID), no rent (lived at home)... was out for about $15k. Got a BS-CSC from a great school and never had a student loan. P.S. I graduated in '02.

I think of a stock that doesn't pay dividends similar to precious metals such as gold. Gold doesn't actually do anything... it just sits there. It's a store of value. That's pretty much how stocks like Apple are. As tbannist said, you only get a benefit once you sell it.

Good point.

MS might then claim their implementation of ODF is "standards compliant" - and even provide test results that "prove" it - but would somehow work differently in practice. Now THAT sounds like IE!