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YouTube has launched a new initiative called YouTube for Schools, which will enable educators to open up classrooms to the wide world of educational content on YouTube without all the junk. Open Internet access in schools is tricky, with all the distractions and time-wasters out there, so Google is taking this step to make educators' lives easier.

Network administrators can turn on YouTube for Schools to give school computers access to the vast library of YouTube EDU content from partners such as the Smithsonian and TED. The content is organized into topical and grade-level playlists. You can view the lists at youtube.com/teachers.

Bitstrips for Schools makes us want to go back to the third grade.

Bitstrips is an online tool for quickly and simply creating web comics, and the company has just launched a new product custom-tailored for the classroom. Kids get to be creative; teachers get a new, interactive tool to reinforce learning; and everyone goes home smarter and happier.

College is a horrifying time in one's personal development. Aside from being "the best years of your life," those years are also those in which your expenditures outstrip your income by more than they ever will later (with any luck and ambition on your part, at least). They can also be some of your more strapped-for-time years and attention-deficit-overload years.

Here are a few tools we wish we'd had when we were still dorm-dwelling nobodies. Forward these links on to the collegiate folks in your life, and add your own favorites to the list. Together, we can rid the world of dropped classes and "ramen starvation."