Can someone please explain to me how what is happening in higher education is any different ? Sure. The big difference (enormous, really) is that unlike homes,

Can someone please explain to me how what is happening in higher education is any different ? Sure. The big difference (enormous, really) is that unlike homes, there is no secondary market for diplomas. We talk about an education as an investment, but in truth the 'asset' is us. One reason the housing bubble was so devastating was that if one person defaulted, it marginally depressed the value of everyone else's home. If someone defaults on their student loan, it doesn't make everyone else's education less valuable. The student loan debt problem is much more like the credit card debt problem, which exacerbated the housing bubble but on its own had nowhere near the cascading impact. Student loans are a problem, but they are not a crisis. We should be much more concerned that there has been no meaningful banking reform since the 2008 crisis, and that banks are still gambling on dangerous derivatives whose real risks are unknown and quite possibly incomputable.