[Estragon]

It's a little different, in that as far as I know, no one is trying to flog off CDSs or other swaps on Student Loan Asset Backed Securities. So it will come as a shock to the higher education industry, but may not have the broad impact that the housing and tech bubbles did.

[philwelch]

Give it time. It took entire lifetimes of tradition and "conventional wisdom" (house prices never go down!) to make the housing bubble possible. By the time the higher education bubble bursts, there may very well be the derivatives. Remember that while housing debt was secured by the value of the real estate itself, student debt is secured by the fact that it's impossible to discharge, even in bankruptcy.