Beauty doesn’t pay. At least beauty pageants don’t.

The New York Times reports today that beauty pageants are really just as dumb and vapid as they seem. Winners are having trouble collecting on the college scholarships they were promised for parading around in their bathing suits.

Technicalities and paper work stopped Miss South Carolina 2004 from collecting her $20,000 scholarship. “What is very clear to me is that the goal is to not give out the scholarships if at all possible,” she said.

That Miss South Carolina attends Wharton. Meanwhile, Miss Teen South Carolina 2007, who could have certainly benefited from a college scholarship, seems to be doing fine without any education.

Say what you will about Donald Trump, at least he keeps it real about what beauty pageants are all about: beauty.

We’ve all seen the MTV Truelife: I Want the Perfect Body with the aspiring anorexic beauty pageant contestant. And even if we’ve never gone on a crash diet of cottage cheese and apples or sticky taped our bikini, we know a thing or two about beauty contestants: Namely, that they’re crazy.

But after the weeks of semi-starvation, hours in the tanning booth and money spent on teeth whitening, there must be some glory in being crowned Miss Teen America. That moment must make up all for the others, until an idiot from South Carolina steals your thunder.

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• Naomi Campbell gets naked for the sake of art. Assuming "art" is broadly defined as "lying on a bed of rotten fruit."

• Miss South Carolina goes on the Today show to explain how she entered a pageant comprised of large-chested blond girls and left with the undisputed title as "the dumb one." (Highlight: After Ann Curry lobs a couple of softballs, Matt Lauer interjects with, "At what point, Caitlyn, during the answer did you start to think to yourself, 'is this making any sense?' Oh, snap!)

• Rumors of Owen Wilson's possible suicide attempt are still…unconfirmed.

• Meanwhile, in the wake of Wilson's hospitalization, paparazzi fall all over themselves to get these exclusive shots of his ex, Kate Hudson, crying internally while holding a Starbucks coffee cup.

• The top-secret child abuse allegations against Britney Spears mysteriously end up in documents filed b K-Fed's lawyers just 24 hours later. Bizarre!

Surely good looks has its advantages. Free drinks at the bar, unlimited dating options and being liked for no real reason. But what is the price of beauty? In the case of Miss South Carolina, having any brains at all.

Her answer to the softball question about one in five Americans not being able to locate the U.S. on a world map during the Miss Teen USA Pageant this weekend makes us hope that those 20 percent at least have teeth as white as hers.

Despite the answer, she came in third runner-up. She really is quite attractive.