HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: Luxurious College Apartments, Built on Debt.

The lazy rivers. The dining-hall steakhouse. The hot tubs. The dazzling fitness centers. Journalists who cover higher education love these lists of amenities in student housing, and readers love to hate them.

Take the latest trend in college housing: luxury off-campus apartment buildings that rent only to students. This is, on the face of it, somewhat mysterious. Students are not known for their fantastic credit. Nor for taking excellent care of their surroundings. I myself recall moving into a rather standard off-campus rental that first had to be cleared of the 57 bags of garbage that the previous occupants left behind. Everything you would infer from that fact about the condition of the house is correct.

Yet apparently today’s students have a rather more inviting option: student-only apartment buildings considerably nicer than those occupied by, say, many successful journalists of my acquaintance. This naturally raises the question: Where are the students getting the money for this?

In some cases, from their parents. I cannot explain why those parents should want to spend sizable sums procuring top-flight housing for their progeny, and why they differ in this so much from the parents of my generation, who were generally willing to approve off-campus living only on the condition that it cost less than a year in the dormitories.

But in other cases, the students choosing these luxury options are almost certainly financing that lifestyle with money lent, at below-market rates, by you the taxpayer.