There are alternatives to MS-Office, especially if one feels the price of MS-Office is too high.
You can't beat the price of StarOffice or OpenOffice, because they are FREE. Well, there is always a hidden cost (the indirect cost of downloading the FREE software). If you are in a UMUC computer lab, you are in luck. :-)
Besides the compatibility with MS-Office and ability to run on multiple platforms (Windows, Solaris, LINUX), what I really like about these Office suite programs are the ability to Export documents to PDF and SWF (flash) formats.
Enjoy!
Dan Bennette