Jeff-
You are correct in your assumptions. College bats typically have all of the correct markings that a player issued bat would have but they were stamped with a college name (at the factory I believe). I think they are really nice as you can obtain them at a much cheaper price when compared to a player issued model. In terms of pricing, I sold a Mantle from Brown Unniversity for 150ish and an Aaron from the same school for about 100. The Mantle I had was in rough shape (you could barely read the name) but the knob had a 7 on it so that might be why I got as much as I did for it. If you search this forum for college bats (or something similar) you might be able to find the post I made regarding the two bats I described above as well as information from some of this forum's bat experts regarding these types of bats.
Yours in collecting,
Alan Elefson
aelefson@hotmail.com