“Student Loan Issues” is a briefing on questionable student loan practices, designed not to stretch available data to fit certain perspectives or politics but rather to underscore industry cunning. Mainly: the devastating, incipient loan instruments and practices that can trap unprepared students for years, or for life.

Loans in general bewilder students, and intricate modern loans confuse us all. It’s important to understand the modern loan environment for students: postsecondary needs, federal loan availability, private loan practices, etc. And ultimately to share warnings with parents and students and decision-makers.

This is not a blog about the private student loan industry or for-profit education sector as investment vehicles. The subprime mortgage crisis showed us how dangerous it is to underestimate future rates of default, and the same fate may well claim student loans, but this blog cares far more about those students facing default than the various investors helplessly holding bad loans.