Hi guys, I learnt about bitcoins only this year. I was active in distributed computing projects like Folding@Home earlier on. I thought to myself there must be a way to make money for myself instead of donating cpu power to helping humanity, the selfish person that I am. At the time there was nothing like bitcoin, and I had only a Celeron M on my laptop and was getting left behind in the dust by people who had just started using their PS3s and GPUs for distributed computing projects. So I gave up and forgot about it as I could not invest in a new computer with a powerhouse GPU just for donations sake. Being out the loop because of my discouragement, I missed the early Bitcoin train!

After I learnt of bitcoin, I began toying with the idea of investing in a mining rig for the purposes of making money. I am wondering if it is still possible for someone without any electricity costs (University situation) to earn at least the cost of hardware back? I realize that the difficulty levels are rising exponentially, the USD/bitcoin rate has been trending downwards since June.. All of this makes me wonder whether or not if it is worth it or not?