Let's review the stock performance of the student lending community

We started this last year, but haven't really followed up with it. Who's getting rich? Not stock holders of student loan companies, that's for sure. Last May, student loan companies were commanding a one month return of about 10%....not bad stuff. But that was last May. Since April 2, 2007 (we purposely avoided tracking the student loan portfolio on April 1), through today...ouch...those same companies are posting a 47% decline in market value. We think a series of "hard eight" bets at the craps table would fare better than a student loan investment.

If our HTML skills were better, we'd post the results in this spot, but we're somewhat handicapped in that department (our student loan portfolio consists of: UNCL, STU, NNI, SLM, and FMD).

We're not addressing the investment performance to twist the knife or anything like that. This is merely how the market has reacted to the series of events that has affected the student lending industry. Granted, we normally just vent our spleens here, but what we talk about is real. The equity markets call it like is. That's the cool thing about money. It's not going to be prejudiced by anything but the ability to make more money. And the decline in the equity values of these student lending organizations merely confirms the outlook of the ability of students to acquire loans which will facilitate the attainment of a higher education. It's not a rosy picture. And there is no solution on the horizon.