# Mars College

> Mars College is an annual pop-up, off-grid college town in the California desert. Every winter since 2020, its community builds a temporary solar-powered campus from pallet racks and plywood on a dry lake bed near Bombay Beach, on the Salton Sea. For three months (January–March) it runs like a full college town — classes, art, a gallery, an AI film festival — then it is torn down and the desert is returned to bare ground. There is no tuition; a season costs about $1,500 total. The 2027 season (Season 8) is now accepting rolling applications at https://mars.college.

Key facts: founded 2020 by Gene Kogan and Freeman; AI-native since the founding season; self-governed as a do-ocracy with camps, circles, an elected council, and a transparent treasury; its AI school is the Mars Institute of Technology (MIT — Mars College's own school, a desert joke, unaffiliated with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology); its build organization is the Department of Public Works (DPW). Contact: info@mars.college.

## Overview

- [About Mars College](https://mars.college/about.md): what Mars College is, quick facts, and what makes it distinctive
- [FAQ](https://mars.college/faq.md): cost, dates, location, joining, remote work, housing, weather
- [How Mars works](https://mars.college/how-mars-works.md): camps, DPW, the Treasury, governance, costs, norms
- [History 2019–2026](https://mars.college/history.md): the seven seasons from the Brahman founding to the Guardian feature
- [Traditions & vocabulary](https://mars.college/traditions.md): Thunder Talks, Ideas Week, Mars Electronica, Chiba, and the rest of the Mars lexicon

## The 2027 season

- [Mars 2027 — Season 8](https://mars.college/mars-2027.md): full timeline, the five camps, costs, grants, and who should apply
- [AI at Mars / Mars Institute of Technology](https://mars.college/ai.md): eight years of AI studies, the Off-Grid AI Engineering curriculum, the online cohort, Eden, and the AI Film Festival

## Pages on mars.college (HTML)

- [Home](https://mars.college/): overview and application entry point
- [Mars Institute of Technology](https://mars.college/mit): the AI school
- [AI Film Festival](https://mars.college/mff): all four festival editions, 2023–2026

## Camp sites (each camp runs its own site on a subdomain)

- [DPW](https://dpw.mars.college): the build organization — materials, crew, concessions
- [Department of Emergent Civilization](https://dec.mars.college): the makerspace residency (DEC, formerly known as Tool Camp)
- [Martian Music Academy](https://music.mars.college): the music camp (MMA)
- [Co Lab](https://colab.mars.college): the community-practice camp

## Links & press

- [Official links, socials, projects, and press](https://mars.college/links.md): Substack, Instagram, X, GitHub, YouTube, Eden, press coverage

## Optional

- [Full content in one file](https://mars.college/llms-full.txt)