Steven Greenhut on the Student Loan Bubble Popping

.

EJP Photo/flickr

After Santa Ana, California-based Corinthian Colleges this month filed for bankruptcy and announced the closure of its remaining for-profit college campuses, talk in Congress and the Legislature has revolved around proposals to bail out student debt for as many as 16,000 students. Financial analysts have for years warned about the parallels between easy student loan debt and the easy mortgages that led to an artificially inflated housing market in the mid-2000s, and the resulting price drops and foreclosure bonanza. Maybe it's time to reignite those discussions, writes Steven Greenhut. Have we heard the first pop in a bursting student-loan bubble?