Sure, colleges that win national championships sell plenty of T-shirts and bumper stickers and gain seemingly nonstop exposure on SportsCenter. But contrary to popular perception, big-time university athletic programs on average do little or nothing to attract better-qualified students or net larger alumni donations, a new study contends. Read the rest of this entry »

Vickie Pon studied hard and it paid off. This spring, she graduated from Dakota Ridge High School in Littleton, Colo., having raked in more than $ 269,000 in scholarship and grant offers, thanks in large part to her academic performance. The University of California-Berkeley offered a $ 12,038 “Cal Bears” scholarship; the University of San Francisco put $ 12,800 on the table; and the University of Colorado-Boulder’s Norlin Scholarship promised $ 8,000. Pon, now 18, also won a Boettcher Scholarship (tuition and living expenses for Colorado’s top 40 graduating seniors, provided they go to school in-state) and a $ 3,600 National Merit Scholarship. Read the rest of this entry »