Today begins NCAA basketball's "March Madness." The tournament's eventual champions will get to bask in the national spotlight until the next cruise-ship disaster/naked Congressman/shark attack/GOP primary/baseball season/chain-restaurant review by a flyover-state newspaper happens. And sure, winning a basketball title is worth bragging about. But we all know the real champion is the institution of higher education that can charge the most tuition and still have enough would-be students to be able to send out rejection letters every year. For a second year, here's the NCAA bracket by tuition, using the college information resource Peterson's. (Where available, in-state tuition was used.) Who will be the champs this [...]

Caesar Storlazzi has been the chief financial aid officer at Yale since 2005. Back in November, he made the decision to work with the government's direct student lending program, in anticipation of the disembowelment of Sallie Mae and the other mega-lenders. And now, he tells the Times, he's regretting it. "'It really felt like the administration was just shoving this down our throats,' he said. 'It feels a bit like a federal takeover.' With competition among lenders, he said, 'We get better prices and services.'" What a strange and amazing thing for a senior official at Yale to say!