AC

Senate Republicans blocked a vote Tuesday on a bill that would have extended the current low 3.4 percent interest rate on Stafford student loans, taking issue with how the Democratic bill would fund the extension. If Congress fails to pass such an extension by July, the rates will double. Some experts worry that there is a student loan bubble that will collapse when many of those who borrowed money for education cannot find work, causing default rates to skyrocket. The default rate jumped nearly 2 percentage points between fiscal years 2008 and 2009, though the problem wasn't isolated to student debt; credit card defaults spiked even more, according to the S&P/Experian Consumer Credit Default Indices. As Reuters' Felix Salmon has written, not everyone can agree on how much total debt presently exists, however. Many reports place the figure at over $1 trillion, while the New York Fed, using a sample of data from Equifax, pins the number at $867...