The housing bubble, explained through fascinating animation

Posted by Student on 2009/03/01 @ 0900 Comments (0) (show tags and categories)

The housing bubble, and the consequent credit crisis, is a very complex system that is elegantly and lucidly explained in the following video, created by Jonathan Jarvis.

There is at least one element missing from the video, which is mentioned but not expanded upon: Credit Default Swaps (CDS), which explain how insurance companies are also included in the flowchart. The Collateralized Debt Obligations (CDOs) are partially insured by CDSes, which is a guarantee that if the CDO stops earning money, the insurance company will pay the difference. Because the CDO market was actually the business of reselling housing mortgages (and we all know how that went) the CDS contracts are now in effect. Now, insurance companies must pay out sums of money that are a large portion of the total mortgage defaults.

Nevertheless, this video is fantastic, and it is a useful tool for learning more about the student loan bubble. In the same way that bankers created CDOs out of mortgages, student loan debt has also been packaged and resold to other bankers and investors. Unlike mortgages, students are not able to default on their loan repayments.

Excerpt from: http://vimeo.com/3261363

The goal of giving form to a complex situation like the credit crisis is to quickly supply the essence of the situation to those unfamiliar and uninitiated. This project was completed as part of my thesis work in the Media Design Program, a graduate studio at the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, California.

Long-term student loan inflation provided money to students, indirectly to colleges

Posted by Student on 2009/02/13 @ 0630 Comments (0) (show tags and categories)

A central component of the Student Loan Bubble thesis is the effect of over-abundant federally subsidized debt, which increased students’ access to cheap debt, and indirectly enabled colleges to charge more for tuition as a means of tapping into this debt. Richard Vedder and Andrew Gillen have written an interesting piece for Inside Higher Ed, in which they claim a 61 percent increase in the availability of this type of debt over the last decade, and dig into the ways colleges have spent that money.

Vedder and Gillen draw a parallel to the housing bubble by observing the similar financing practices that drove both bubbles. From the Student Loan Bubble perspective, the inverse observation is that the prospects for future growth in career income justified the risk of taking on student loans. This wager on future earnings downplayed the threat that young professionals might not be able to repay their debts, unless they truly earned more money through their career.

Both descriptions converge on the similarities to the housing bubble, but the conclusion is ultimately unsettling. Whereas over-extended home debtors are able to default on their mortgages, students have no home-like asset that can be repossessed by the bank. Vedder and Gillen suggest a somewhat bizarre strategy, whereby colleges purchase equity in students’ future earnings, financed by the college endowment. The suggestion is either deeply unsettling, or simply another way of saying that students will go into debt for the eduction, making repayments to the school instead of a bank. In all, it makes for an interesting read.

Excerpt from: http://www.insidehighered.com/views/2008/05/02/ved…

The 61 percent increase in inflation-adjusted federal loans over the last decade leaves virtually all their students capable of paying more in tuition. The schools can either raise tuition, using the additional money to help build a better (more prestigious) college , or could leave tuition unchanged in an inflation-adjusted sense. The decision they made is obvious from U.S. Department of Education data. Over the last 10 years, after adjusting for inflation, tuition is up 48% at public schools and 24% at private schools.

Giving schools more money to build better institutions may not seem like a bad idea, but keep in mind that their goal is to increase prestige. This means that they will not necessarily use the money to improve the education their students receive. For example, Inside Higher Ed recently reported that less than half of employees at America’s institutions of higher education are faculty, information reinforced by a new study released this week. Today’s universities are congested with vast bureaucracies that stifle innovation and waste resources. Princeton University recently constructed a fancy dorm that cost $70,000 more per bed than the median home price. This unnecessary largess should show that what increases prestige may have very little effect on the education of students. Moreover, much of the extra money for schools ultimately comes from the students, who have seen the average debt upon graduation steadily increase to over $20,000 last year.

The analogy to the housing bubble is nearly perfect. Low interest rates arising from expansionary Federal Reserve policies led to rising housing demand, rising home prices, and excessive lending to individuals with dubious credit worthiness. Similar things have happened with student loans. The federal government has provided subsidized, low interest credit, often to students whose prospects for graduating from college are marginal and whose credit histories are non-existent. Student loan defaults are rising along with tuition fees. Already, some private lenders are exiting the market and federal officials are starting to become increasingly worried about the availability of student loans. The government-induced housing bubble is paralleled by what could be thought of as a tuition-loan bubble.

How will the student loan bubble affect colleges?

Posted by Student on 2009/02/10 @ 0630 Comments (0) (show tags and categories)

An inevitable consequence of the changing landscape in student loans is that colleges and universities have a mixed outlook, because those loans provide a critical source of income. According to Desmond, there is already evidence that educational institutions have altered their policies, and may be preparing even more sweeping measures for the future. Are we about to witness the same downsizing, mergers, and acquisitions that have affected recent bubble industries?

Excerpt from: http://www.forbes.com/2008/10/22/college-debt-loan…

College tuition has increased by more than three times the rate of inflation for the last 20 years, despite U.S. wages flat-lining since 2000. The average tuition at a private four-year institution grew 6.6% year-over-year in 2007 to $23,712, according to the College Board. This is pricey in itself, but when you add in all the luxe living expenses, the total bill touches $50,000 a year at the high end.

To the chagrin of financial advisers, students are increasingly turning to higher interest private loans to meet the burgeoning college bill. Private loans made up 24% of total education loans in 2006-07, up from 6% a decade ago. In 2008, students secured $20 billion in private loans–amounting to roughly a fifth of total undergraduate borrowings for the year. Taxpayers pony up, too, chipping in an average $4,000 per student through government loans and grants to private institutions, which usually come up with $3,720 in aid (often in the form of discounted tuitions) as well.

It’s a scenario familiar to anyone who watched the housing bubble blow. “We are at a trend line that cannot be sustained,” says Matt Snowling, an analyst at Friedman, Billings and Ramsey, who covers the student loan industry. “Tuition must go down, or there will be limited demand at high-priced private schools.”