Summer credit too expensive

I started doing the math the minute I found out that I'd finally landed a summer internship. One course credit for every 50 hours of work, for up to six credits. Beautiful. If I could get that many credits working at my dream job over the summer, it meant I was in for one heck of a senior year. The kind where you only enroll in nine credit hours the spring semester and graduate without having to take any final exams. \nTrouble is, most reporters aren't very good at math and I am no exception. When it comes to numbers, I tend to get things a bit mixed up. For example, when the good people at the Career Development Center told me I'd actually have to pay IU to get credit for my internship, I thought, sure, what the heck. It's only $40 per credit hour, right? I was sure I'd heard that somewhere before.\nUnfortunately, it's more like $400 per credit hour. For 2001- 02 the going rate for an out-of-stater like me was $435.30 per credit hour. Numbers aren't in for 2002-03 yet, but thanks to Friday's 9 percent tuition increase, they're likely to be, well, 9 percent higher. That means for me to get six credits for my internship, I'd have to spend roughly $2,619.80, I think. There's that math thing again. \nThis seems a bit hard, considering IU didn't help me find the internship. No one planned things out for me or led me through the search process. It's not as though I'll have a professor or a graduate assistant who need to be paid for their time and knowledge. I'll be doing just as much work whether I get course credit or not -- it seems the only thing that matters is how much I pay the University. If I don't have enough money for six credits, I can buy three for $1,305.90. Apparently my internship experience is only educational in IU's eyes if I have the chinks to back it up.\nWhich makes me wonder. I'm a big Thomas Hardy fan. I've never taken an IU course on Hardy, but I've got The Mayor of Casterbridge at home and I'll probably read it again this summer for the umpteenth time. Maybe I could work things out with the English department, write a check to the bursar for $1,741.20, and earn four credits toward graduation the next time I watch Tess of the D'Urbervilles on A&E. It's an independent study, I could claim, if anyone from IU looked too closely at my "coursework," but somehow I doubt the University would ask too many questions after receiving the 1,741.20 beans. \n Then again, perhaps I should be more careful about disclosing my typical summertime activities. There could be adverse effects if word gets back to the administration. I certainly don't want to return home to find an angry-looking bill in my mailbox anytime soon, with a note of explanation reading: "You have read Pride and Prejudice sixteen times on official IU summer vacation time. The University has determined that this makes up the coursework of L329, Really Good Books by Jane Austen, and has decided to charge you $435.30 per insight you have had as a result of reading this book." \nNo, I certainly do not want to be charged for learning over summer vacation. So I'll do my internship and I'll have to pass on earning course credit because I can't afford it, but it's frustrating to think that if I had enough money, I could just buy my degree right now and save myself a lot of trouble.