{"id":70325,"date":"2026-03-29T11:00:01","date_gmt":"2026-03-29T16:00:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/2026\/03\/29\/no-tuition-no-grades-no-power-grid-why-are-people-flocking-to-a-college-in-the-middle-of-the-desert\/"},"modified":"2026-03-29T11:00:01","modified_gmt":"2026-03-29T16:00:01","slug":"no-tuition-no-grades-no-power-grid-why-are-people-flocking-to-a-college-in-the-middle-of-the-desert","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/2026\/03\/29\/no-tuition-no-grades-no-power-grid-why-are-people-flocking-to-a-college-in-the-middle-of-the-desert\/","title":{"rendered":"No tuition, no grades, no power grid: why are people flocking to a \u2018college\u2019 in the middle of the desert?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Two hundred miles from LA, an off-grid community with roots in Burning Man offers an unorthodox educational experience \u2013 is Mars College the future?<\/p>\n<p>A dozen writing students perched around a collection of weather-beaten couches, laptops balancing on their knees, ready to discuss their work. Next up to read was Ira Birch, a poet sporting black boots and a shag haircut.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI told myself I was gonna share today,\u201d Birch said nervously, looking around the circle. \u201cBut there are a lot more people here.\u201d<\/p>\n<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/us-news\/2026\/mar\/29\/mars-college-california-campus\">Continue reading&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Two hundred miles from LA, an off-grid community with roots in Burning Man offers an unorthodox educational experience \u2013 is Mars College the future? A dozen writing students perched around a collection of weather-beaten couches, laptops balancing on their knees, ready to discuss their work. Next up to read was Ira Birch, a poet sporting &#8230; <a title=\"No tuition, no grades, no power grid: why are people flocking to a \u2018college\u2019 in the middle of the desert?\" class=\"read-more\" href=\"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/2026\/03\/29\/no-tuition-no-grades-no-power-grid-why-are-people-flocking-to-a-college-in-the-middle-of-the-desert\/\" aria-label=\"Read more about No tuition, no grades, no power grid: why are people flocking to a \u2018college\u2019 in the middle of the desert?\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_hide_featured_image":false,"_jetpack_featured_image_duplicate_dismissed":0,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-70325","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70325","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=70325"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70325\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=70325"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=70325"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=70325"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}