Affordable College Towns

Most affordable college football towns.

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Muncie, Indiana, ranks as the most affordable big football town for housing in the United States, according to an annual survey released Tuesday by Coldwell Banker.

Home prices in Muncie, home to the Ball State University Cardinals, average $150,000 for a 2,200-square-foot single-family house with four bedrooms, two-and-a-half baths, family room and two-car garage.

The Coldwell Banker College Home Price Comparison Index looks at the hometowns of 119 Division 1-A college football programs to see how much the same type of house costs in each market of a middle-management type neighborhood.

"College towns remain a popular living destination - whether they are first time homeowners or alumni looking for great retirement spots," Jim Gillespie, Coldwell Banker's chief executive, said in a release.

"School spirit draws many alumni back to their alma mater and for others, continuing their education, pursuing jobs, enjoying cultural activities and following college sports make these communities ideal homes," he said.

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German Steeple Challenges Leaning Tower of Pisa

BERLIN (Reuters) - The Guinness Book of World Records has ruled that a church steeple in Germany, not the famous leaning tower of Pisa, is the most tilted tower in the world.

The 25.7-metre steeple tilts at an angle of 5.07 degrees, while the tower of Pisa tilts at just 3.97 degrees, said Olaf Kuchenbecker, head of Guinness's German edition.

"When you lay photos of the two next to each other you can see it relatively clearly," Kuchenbecker said.

The new record, scheduled to appear next autumn in the 2009 edition of the Guinness Book of World Records, could strip the Pisa tower of its iconic status, Kuchenbecker said.

The 15th century German church tower stands in Suurhusen, a small village near Emden in northwestern Germany. Although its tilt angle is greater than Pisa's tower, it has less than half the Italian tower's height and none of its ornate beauty.

Kuchenbecker will present the village with a certificate commemorating the record on Thursday.

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Why You Haven't Heard of Citigroup's New CEO

The CEOs of two of the largest financial institutions in the country have resigned in recent weeks: Stanley O'Neal of Merrill Lynch and Charles Prince of Citigroup. These rock-star CEOs, both undone by the festering fallout of the subprime mess, have been replaced by operating executives with far lower profiles. On Monday, when Prince stepped down, he was replaced as chairman by 1990s icon Robert Rubin and as chief executive officer by Win Bischoff, a European banking executive whom resurgent CNBC anchor Maria Bartiromo would probably not recognize. When O'Neal resigned from Merrill last week, the company didn't name a replacement CEO but instead named board member Alberto Cribiore, a private-equity executive who could walk anonymously onto the floor of the New York Stock Exchange, to be the interim non executive chairman.

In time, both firms will likely bring in high-profile CEOs, probably from outside the company, to right the ship. But in the meantime, both banks have swapped household names for no-names. Rubin aside, the new bosses are unknown quantities even to many within the investment banks. It would be like the Yankees firing Joe Torre and declaring that the best person to run the show on an interim basis is the manager of the Class A Staten Island Yankees.

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