BUBBLES AND SPICE: For-profit universities are number three in IBISWorld's latest report (PDF) on the top ten fastest growing industries in the U.S, with revenues currently at $27 billion and projected to grow at an estimated 3.6% per year for the next five years. (And a round of applause for the $1 billion hot sauce production industry, which also made the list!) Funny, because a recent National Bureau of Economic Research report on the cost of enrollment in for-profit post-secondary schools find students leaving with considerably higher debt and defaulting on their loans at a higher rate. But while such evidence may support Peter Thiel's premonitions of a higher-education bubble, Sallie Mae CEO Albert Lord recently proclaimed that "we don't see anything of any evidence close to a bubble."
