Bernanke Says Student Loans Won't Cause Crisis

Defense: It's backed by the government.

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke said record U.S. student loan debt doesn't put the financial system at risk the way mortgages did because most educational borrowing is backed by the government.

"I don't think it's a financial stability issue to the same extent that, say, mortgage debt was in the last crisis because most of it is held not by financial institutions but by the federal government," Bernanke said today at a town hall meeting with teachers at the Fed in Washington.