One of my fraternity brothers from Duke, John Armbrust, is in the top 30 and survived onto Day 6. The very least amount of money he will stand to win is $285,000, but he has a nice chip stack ($2.6 million) and he's a great player, so anything can happen.
He was in last place and down to a a couple hundred thousand chips before making a furious comeback. Here's a picture of him before making the run:
Here's an article on John written by Craig Cunningham of Pokerworks. Craig (cc) was a frequent commenter on this blog for a while before he got busy with his own website, Quest of a Closet Poker Player.
Check out John's blog to keep tabs on his experience, which he's been keeping since playing in a couple of other events. It's quite detailed and poker-heavy.
Best of luck to John the rest of the way, no matter what happens he's already made a great accomplishment and set himself up for a nice poker career, not to mention a good financial situation for the next few years!
John Armbrust's WSOP Blog
World Series of Poker Official Site
Card Player
