HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: Introducing The College-Cost Denial Industry. “There’s an agenda here, it’s well funded and knows just how to attract the right kind of attention. Brookings, New America and other think tanks provide perfect fodder for explainer sites such as The Upshot and Vox, where single-source reporting seems to be in vogue. Still, these reports are right about one thing: The student debt bubble isn’t going to explode like the housing bubble. Instead, it’s going to fill slowly as it grows over decades, burdening borrowers further and further into the future. As Roosevelt Institute fellow Mike Konczal points out, though the Brookings paper celebrates stability in the size of month-to-month payments over time, the average repayment period has nearly doubled. A recent analysis by Leonhardt’s colleague Anna Bahr shows how a new Obama administration repayment plan costs the average debtor more in the long run than the standard models. Instead of buying homes and cars, borrowers are paying down debt so colleges can buy more dorms and student centers. Though they only get to enjoy them for only a handful of years as students, they pay on a long installment plan.”

Couldn’t have said it better myself.