One School, One Class, One Hundred Million in Debt Alone...for a 2-year degree

From Fortune/CNN Money:

In all likelihood, [the Wharton School of Business incoming class] will be the first MBA class in history to pay more than $100 million in loans and interest payments for the privilege of gaining the degree. In fact, if the class of 2013 continues to borrow at rates similar to their predecessors, it will take on a staggering $112.4 million in debt, loan origination fees, and interest payments. That heart-stopping sum includes interest payments of about $33.5 million. All this, for just a single class of MBAs, one in four of which is likely to incur no debt at all

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Emphasis mine. Do you think the 1-in-4 who incur no debt will have any problem finding a remunerative job?

In other places, the article states that there are 845 students in the class. So 634 are going to carry $100+ million between them. $157k per person.

You might argue the job prospects for Wharton grads are outstanding, but the article points out that median salaries were only at around $110,000 last year. And I can tell you that there are a lot of MBAs from even elite programs floating around working at jobs that simply don't require such credentials.

Sound familiar? Wait, there's more!

As one incoming student puts it, "The tuition is a big number when you look at it. But I think an MBA or an education in general is a long-term investment. When you graduate from a program, you might get a salary, which is not all that great. But that's a short-term phenomenon. At the end of the day, you take a calculated risk. There's a lot more that I'll gain from the program, and if I have to repay the loan over a longer time, that's okay."

Jesus Hardtack Christ, you really think this is a long-term investment that will pay off when there are a gazillion other MBAs out there, and thousands more coming through the pipeline?

Oh yes, they have saturation, too:

For the Harvard Class of 1949, of course, the rich life was easy. They ascended the ranks of business in the Go-Go years as the U.S. bestrode the world as an economic colossus. When they graduated, there were only 2,300 other students getting MBAs that year -- and only 50,000 living MBAs in the entire U.S. Today, roughly 250,000 people in the U.S. alone are enrolled in MBA programs, which pump out more than 100,000 MBAs a year. There are some 40,000 living Wharton MBAs alone.

Years from now, I wonder how historians will write about our hysteria for severely overpriced education, and how sharply history will frown on the cheerleaders who talk about education being great at any cost.

Roughly 30% of the University of Pennsylvania's graduates are having trouble paying back their student loans, according to government statistics.

This is one of the top 20 universities in the country.

Higher education has become little more than a lottery, where the winners apparently get to break even on their investment.