The Project on Student Debt, a research and advocacy organization in Oakland, Calif., used federal data to estimate that 206,000 people graduated from college (including many from for-profit universities) with more than $40,000 in student loan debt in that same period. That’s a ninefold increase over the number of people in 1996, using 2008 dollars.

The New York Times has an excellent article on ballooning student loan debt. I’ve long thought higher education will be the next bubble to burst; people are leveraging themselves beyond what their college degree will give them the ability to pay.