{
  "id": 15207433,
  "title": "Mark Cuban is worth $10 billion—but in college, he paid for junior year with a dorm-room chain letter he admits was ‘basically a scam’",
  "url": "https://urgent.news/2026/10/17/mark-cuban-is-worth-10-billion-but-in-college-he-paid-for-junior-year",
  "topic": "finance",
  "section": "Finance & Markets",
  "published": "2026-10-17T13:26:21.000Z",
  "source": {
    "name": "Fortune",
    "slug": "fortune",
    "url": "https://fortune.com/article/what-is-mark-cuban-net-worth-college-junior-year-dorm-room-chain-letter-scam-pay-for-tuition/"
  },
  "original_language": "en",
  "account": "Mark Cuban, the billionaire owner of the Dallas Mavericks, once paid for part of his college education through a scam he executed in his Indiana University dorm. In an interview with the San Francisco Standard's Life in Seven Songs podcast in 2024, Cuban admitted that the \"chain letter\" was \"basically a scam.\" To raise funds, he approached fellow students, asking them to contribute $100, keeping $50 for himself and forwarding the remaining $50 to the next person on a list. Cuban credited this scheme with enabling him to pay for his junior year of college.",
  "summary": "Cuban, who grew up in a working-class family, says his early hustles laid the groundwork for a career that took him from a crowded Dallas apartment to billionaire status.",
  "key_points": [],
  "editors_take": null,
  "illustration": null,
  "coverage": {
    "outlets": 1,
    "also_reported_by": []
  },
  "ai_generated": true,
  "disclaimer": "Summaries, key points and the editor’s take are written by software from other outlets’ reporting and may contain errors — always check the linked original."
}