The blogsare abuzzwith comments and critique on the NY TImes Sunday magazine cover storyabout surrogacy; while it's far from this blog to comment on issues of class, privilege, and maternity, one telling fact tucked into the story deserves outspoken mention. Here's the sentence that made me sit up straight: "She [the author's surrogate, Cathy] brought her daughter Rebecca, who had been an egg donor to help pay her college tuition."

Two generations of women in one family have traded, or exchanged, or frankly sold, their biological material, to pay for college. One is paying for her own education as a 20-year-old aspiring journalist, one is funding her daughter's college progress, and this one is left to sincerely wonder what the 11-year-old girl who stayed at home is left to make of the transactions.

It's commonplace to complain about the high costs of a college education. What about the human cost? What will society endorse giving up -- eggs, a womb -- to gain access? And what does this family's experience reveal about our colleges and universities, and about the treasured maxim that anyone who works hard can make their way?

Questions abound; answers are elusive.