Former ad students Eric Stiles and Nick Larson have taken online education to a new level. They say ad school is too expensive, so the pair have set out to complete their books outside of portfolio school with your help. They've started a project where they are paying people to provide the best creative direction to help them develop their campaign. They have $600 to spend for a "quality" education and they are paying rewards of $200 per level of the assignment. Level 1 is completed. If you want to pass on your knowledge to help them with revisions for level 2, you have until March 11. Eric and Nick have also recruited help from a creative at Crispin Porter+Bogusky to sort through the feedback to find creative genius among the garbage.

For the full story, check out: My Crowd School.

The two definitely aren't short on creativity. I'd be surprised if people didn't call them in for interviews just to see how the project turned out. And don't let this turn into an ad school uprising. Education and expense have gone hand-in-hand since early man first uttered the word, "college." I give them credit for being inventive, but I would hate to see more students apply their creativity toward getting out of a higher education. Street smarts will only get you so far. Still I'm interested to see what a $600 education will buy.

As promised, here's some scholarship info I've recently received.

In the US:
Robert F. Lauterborn Scholarship. (AAF Raleigh-Durham area. The link is an application download.) Deadline: April 2, 2010.
F. Andrew Warden Advertising Scholarship  (Univ. of Florida). Deadline: March 15, 2010.

In Canada:
The Society of Graphic Designers Canada (GDC) announced its GDC National Scholarship Awards 2010. Deadline: April 16.

Image courtesy of stock.xchng.