The Education Bubble

More people are going back to college and taking on huge debt to do it, despite questions about what the degree is really worth.

Last year, the amount borrowed by students and received by schools grew some 25% over the previous year, to $75.1 billion. That's a huge amount, especially with weak, low-paying job prospects for graduates in this economy.

As we've noted, all this student loan debt is crazy. Despite the desire to see more subsidization of college, we suspect there will be a collapse in student loan debt availability and desire to take on new debt.

Short of telling kids not to go to college, something's going to give.

The pop may be starting already. As Bloomberg reports, as many as one-third of all private colleges surveyed said they expected enrollment to drop in the next academic year. And almost 40 percent of those colleges said some of their students dropped out due to personal economic reasons and a quarter said full-time attendees switched to part time. Half said families had to cut back their expected contributions as the value of college savings plans dropped 21 percent last year.