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Universities can have a hard time resisting the lure of luxury, which keeps room and board prices rising. LA Johnson/NPR hide caption

Universities can have a hard time resisting the lure of luxury, which keeps room and board prices rising.

Valerie Inniss took out $11,500 in student loans this year to pay for the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.

None of it was for tuition.

The 21-year-old is on a four-year, full-tuition scholarship, won on the strength of her high school test scores. And she qualifies for the maximum federal Pell Grant $5,730 for low-income students.

But that and a campus job were still not enough to cover all her other costs and fees, from healthcare to books. The biggest expense? Nearly $11,000 for room and board, a charge that's risen 15 percent since she started college four years ago.

That breaks down to about $24 a day for food on the cheapest meal plan an amount that's twice what the government says the average American spends per day on food. To share a room will cost $786 a month, which isn't that far below the median monthly rent for an entire apartment or house in America $904 a month.

"I hate it. I absolutely hate it," Inniss says. "But there's nothing I can do about it because I value the education I'm getting here. It's a risk I'm taking."

In addition to steadily raising tuition, but with much less notice, public four-year universities have increased their charges for room and board by 9 percent above inflation in the past five years, according to the College Board. At private colleges, the price has gone up 6 percent above inflation.

Without the inflation adjustment, room and board fees at public colleges and universities have spiked by more than 20 percent since 2009. At private institutions, they're up 17 percent.

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Think Tuition Is Rising Fast? Try Room And Board

Are the cruise lines going the way of the airlines?

A la carte pricing is coming to cruising -- specifically, to some room service items on two major cruise lines. Carnival Cruise Lines will debut a pilot program next week on three of its ships where some room service items will incur a cost.

The announcement is the second of its kind. Norwegian Cruise Line, a Carnival competitor, recently began testing a $7.95 "convenience charge" for room service on the Norwegian Getaway and Norwegian Breakaway. (The food items themselves are still free on NCL.)

On three Carnival ships -- Carnival Imagination, Carnival Conquest and Carnival Pride -- certain room service items will incur a charge as of April 12. Those items include chicken wings, fried shrimp, quesadillas, personal pizzas and sushi, the cruise line said. A wide range of items are still available at no charge, a cruise line representative told ABC News, "including seven different hot and cold sandwiches, three salad choices, three desserts and eight beverages, along with a Continental breakfast menu."

The charge for the items will be $4 to $7. The program may expand to other ships based on guest feedback.

Free room service has long been a favorite feature for cruisers, where food costs are generally considered to be part of the cost of sailing. Should potential cruisers be worried about more fees to come?

Over the years, weve certainly seen a number of new fees rolled out across some cruise lines and we do hear fears of nickel-and-diming from our avid cruisers who are used to the more traditional, more inclusive cruise fare model," said Carolyn Spencer Brown, editor-in-chief of CruiseCritic.com. "From a broader perspective, what were seeing, especially with big ship lines, is a closer alignment to more of a land resort model."

But she points out that the price of a cruise, while not all-inclusive, includes a lot. Accommodations, dining, kids clubs, entertainment and travel from place to place are all included in the price paid. These new fees, Brown said, are for offerings cruise lines may not have had in the past. And it's true that both NCL and Carnival Corp are adding more to the room service menus as they introduce fees.

"Weve seen that, for the most part, the addition of new fees is for either upgraded offerings or for features that simply hadnt been available before," Brown said, "rather than the lines unbundling fares and charging for what was previously included in the cost of a cruise.

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Ahoy Fees! Cruise Lines Test Room Service Charges

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(Brandon Lavorgna/WJCL)

SAVANNAH, Ga. (WJCL) Outside on the construction wall of a long-awaited Savannah Mallrestaurant is a bright red note that finally reveals its fate.

Toby Keiths I Love This Bar and Grill, a restaurant that has been in limbo for over a year, will not be opening its doors at all.

The eviction notice, posted on Tuesday by the Chatham County Sheriffs Office, serves as a final warning for the companies in charge of bringing the famous country bar to the city.

Those companies, CRGE Savannah LLC and Boomtown Entertainment LLC are now being asked to vacate the premises.

Its the final chapter in a story that includes legal disputes over work not completed and is the second major attraction in the mall to vacate in the last two months.

Pole Position Raceway also settled out of court with Virginia College over noise disputes that forced the go-kart track to close just two months after opening.

The restaurant chain itself is no stranger to legal disputes, however.

Reports of rent and other disputes plagued locations in California, Virginia, Idaho, Arizona and Ohio.

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Long awaited restaurant evicted from Savannah Mall

Campus Pizza and Pasta, a former Stadium Village staple, drew students and alumni to its vaunted brick-and-mortar storefront throughout its 56-year history.

But last month, the business that hosted events ranging from open-mic comedy nights to game day celebrations closed its doors for the last time.

Owners of the family-run business said one of the reasons it shut down was because it saw a decrease in foot traffic and sales for a year because of construction on the Green Line light rail.

Its the sad end of a chapter, said Jim Rosvold, co-owner and manager during the restaurants later life.

The effects of the light rail construction dug the restaurant into a financial hole that it couldnt recover from, he said.

The restaurant opened in Stadium

Village in 1959, and about three decades later, the Rosvold family bought it.

The business moved in 2009 from its original location to its final space a larger one across the street, where Rosvold said it thrived with a larger pizza oven and full bar.

But when light-rail construction picked up around the University in 2012, business slowed, and the restaurant never recovered, he said. The business unsuccessfully filed for bankruptcy last summer.

The light rail took off all the parking on Washington, and that killed a lot of that traffic, Rosvold said. We used to have a lot of people come in from the suburbs.

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Campus Pizza closes its doors after 56 years

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