In Eric Alterman's column over at The Nation, he--like so many others--decries the slow, painful death of the newspaper business, citing the staff cuts, page count decreases, reduction of advertising to editorial ratios and abominable leadership of media companies by men like Illinois real estate magnate Sam Zell.

However, Alterman does present one interesting point in passing, offered to him by Vartan Gregorian, president of the Carnegie Corporation, a major non-profit organization in the U.S. Gregorian suggests to Alterman that universities could add a small fee to students' tuition which would pay for the newspaper subscription of their choice.

"This would improve the newspapers' bottom line, give their advertisers access to a coveted demographic and, if successful, would inculcate in the students the habit of newspaper reading as they approach maturity as voting citizens," Alterman writes.

Neither Alterman nor Gregorian specify whether this would be a print subscription or an online one (although many sites allow students free access), but it's an interesting idea nonetheless. 

Now before attacking this idea on the grounds that it only increases students' tuition costs, which I, like everyone else, recognize are at record highs right now, just consider this for its potential to reinvigorate an ailing yet crucial facet of our democracy. If it could help save the newspaper industry, or at least keep it afloat in some incarnation, whether in print or online, wouldn't it be worth it? Isn't the free press (when it is free, of course), a vital component in a functioning democracy and worth paying a bit more for in tuition dollars?