The Credit Crisis Goes to College

National CrossTalk features some fairly in-depth reporting on pertinent higher education issues. This one appears to have been written before the current financial crisis, but does take a good look at students', parents', and administrators' experiences with the prior (and ongoing) credit crunch for student loans:

As academic 2008-09 began, 130 lenders, including 27 of the industry’s 100 biggest-volume originators, had folded their federal-loan businesses. In addition, 31 providers had quit offering private loans. (These counts come from Mark Kantrowitz, who tracks the student-loan industry on his website, finaid.org.)

Disruptions continued into the fall semester, which found thousands of students waiting weeks for promised loans, or scouring for back-up lenders after their old reliables left them hanging.