Mark Cuban: Sweet Briar College closing 'just the beginning' of student loan bubble

Last Tuesday, Sweet Briar College in Lynchburg, Virginia announced it would be closing its doors after spring semester despite possessing a $94 million endowment and regional accreditation.

Although this news came as a shocker for Sweet Briar students, staff, and alumni, Mark Cuban, entrepreneur and billionaire investor, told Business Insider that “this is just the beginning of the college implosion.”

According to the Internet publication, Cuban has been warning for years about a “student loan bubble” and how it will leave many schools suffering in its wake when it bursts.

“As this little college saw, there will be other students that get their heart set on one college, and it won’t be there when they graduate,” Cuban told Business Insider. “There is a growing education bubble, with rising tuition and students taking out loans they might not be able to pay back. At some point, it’s going to pop.”

Currently, students owe $1.3 trillion in student loan debt according to collegedebt.com, a website owned by Cuban which keeps a running total of how much college loan debt is held by students.

Cuban says the only way to fix the growing college bubble is for the U.S. Congress to pass a law that caps the amount students can take out in loans.

“When you put a cap on loans, the money’s not available to universities and colleges,” Cuban said. “They have to either raise student aid or lower tuition, or some a combination of the two.”

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