Condom Nation

Civilization's first line of defense against a baby boom of college spawn is cheap contraceptives. It used to be that a sex-addled liberal arts student at the University of Minnesota could swing by the school's pharmacy and pick up a month of birth control pills for a 10-spot.

That was before the federal Deficit Reduction Act of 2006, which dropped campus health services from a list of providers entitled to drug discounts. When U of M pharmacist Steve Cain heard the news, he panicked and crunched some numbers. He looked at the expiration date on a popular birth control pill and projected how many packs he would go through before they went bad. He called up Ortho, the drug's manufacturer, and ordered enough to fill a closet.

The American College Health Association has appealed to the federal government for help—to no avail. "The relevant agencies are staffed by the current administration and they have no sympathy for issues like this," says Cain.

Time is running out. Cain's bargain contraceptives expire on August 1, after which pill prices will quadruple. Parents, when your kids head back to school in the fall, you might want to pack some condoms along with the chocolate chip cookies.