As far as I know, Maxis didn't sell the Sims to EA. Maxis is a subsidiary of EA and has been since EA bought Maxis in 1997 (aprox. 3 years before The Sims was released), kinda hard to sell something to an entity that you're a part of.

Depends on the district, I went to highschool in lincoln county we didn't even have classes for personal finance, but then lincoln county is a pretty awful school district.

No, because now you're limiting the people that can receive it to people that can already afford to go to college. It seems like it would be more effective to give money to people who are already interested in the field, but that can't afford college, instead of dangling it like a carrot in the hopes that those that can already go to college will choose engineering.