Two weeks ago, Pennsylvania’s State Board of Education drew attention for proposing to create a “no frills” four-year college that would offer a cut-rate bachelor’s degree by focusing on instruction and skipping amenities, like sports teams and posh dorms, that run up tuition bills. For pointers on how to bring about such a stripped-down college, the board might look to the satellite campus of Southern New Hampshire University in Salem, N.H.

As described in today’s Boston Globe, the campus, for first- and second-year students, is housed in a “nondescript suburban office park” off an Interstate highway. The university’s full curriculum of introductory courses is available to students, who pay 40 percent of what their counterparts on the main campus shell out.

After two years at Salem, they can move to the main campus. They may miss the residential experience of being underclass students, but they also save tens of thousands of dollars. To some observers, this sounds like what for-profit and community colleges have been doing for years. To many of the students, it’s the only way they could afford to go to college in a recession. —Andrew Mytelka