When it's not staging any Final Four match-ups, the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) is the powerful governing body critics love to hate. The association's 11-year, $6-billion contract with CBS to televise the tournament has become a lightning rod for critics who say the association is all about making money off athletes. Not so,…

Increasingly, college bookstores are departing from the traditional model and becoming high-technology retailing environments, providing books, merchandise, food services, and entertainment in one location. Critics say they lack charm and are attempting to do too much; supporters feel they are better positioned for sales in a competitive market.…

A ruling in a dispute over whether the State University of New York System was justified in barring from its Cortland campus a group selling kitchen products is discussed. The case involved the legality of a regulation that bars most commercial activity from SUNY campuses. (MLW)

Local bookstore owners charge that the selling of best-sellers and trade books unrelated to coursework by community college bookstores violates California's education code. The decision was not based on free-speech grounds but on the language of the state code. (MSE)

The small-business community, which has long complained that colleges have an unfair advantage in the marketplace because of their tax-exempt status, has become increasingly vocal in its demands for new taxes and restrictions on the services and products that colleges and other non-profit organizations can offer. (MLW)

Interviews with computer-company officials and a survey show that: despite higher education discounts, computer companies make money; colleges offer computer companies intellectual capital; students take hardware and software preferences with them into jobs; higher education influences computers built and sold; and higher education is a…