It is once again time for the NCAA "March Madness" basketball tournament. The eventual champions will get to bask in the national spotlight until the next cruise-ship disaster/shark attack/episode of "Girls"/baseball season/ 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 students to keep its rejection letter printer warm. It's The Awl's annual NCAA bracket by tuition, using the college information resource Peterson's.* (Where available, in-state tuition was used.)

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!

Under the current regime, the most effective means of sticking it to the proverbial man would in theory be for all students to simply pay off all their debts at once. But even if they could scrounge together a trillion dollars out of their collective couches just like that, there is little doubt in my mind that Sallie Mae and its student-loan-sharking brethren would simply see it as an opportunity to levy a massive prepayment penalty. The Internet is a rich trove of surreal personal accounts of being penalized for overpaying student loan bills. But no one notices, because student borrowers are so utterly powerless. They can borrow [...]

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 [...]