Is the College Debt Bubble Ready to Explode?

Laura Rowley

Is the College Debt Bubble Ready to Explode?
by Laura Rowley
Friday, December 3, 2010

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Kelli Space, 23, graduated from Northeastern University in 2009 with a bachelor's in sociology -- and a whopping $200,000 in student loan debt. Space, who lives with her parents and works full-time, put up a Web site called TwoHundredThou.com soliciting donations to help meet her debt obligation, which is $891 a month. That number jumps to $1,600 next November.

In creating the site, Space, of course is hoping to ease her financial burden, but it's "mainly to inform others on the dangers of how quickly student loans add up," she said. So far she's raised $6,671.56, according to her site.

Space is just one example -- albeit an extreme one -- of a student loan bubble that may be about to burst. Over the last decade, private lenders, abetted by college financial aid offices, eagerly handed young people hundreds of thousands of dollars to earn bachelor's degrees. As a result of easy credit, declining grants and soaring tuitions, more than two-thirds of students graduated with debt in 2008 -- up from 45 percent in 1993. The average debt load is $24,000, according to the Project on Student Debt.

Posted by Jim Zellmer at December 6, 2010 3:52 AM
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