"Kimberly Cummings remembers last spring when a young women walked into her office at Montana State University, concerned about having $40,000 in private student loans and an interest rate of 19 percent," reports the Bozeman Daily Chronicle. "'What is going on?' wondered Cummings, who works for the nonprofit Student Assistance Foundation, counseling students on college loans. What's going on is an explosion in private student loans. And that has people who advise MSU students on finances very, very worried. Private loan companies are selling a growing number of students on easy money for college. An unknown number of private loans go directly from the lender to the students' pockets. Some analysts predict that at the rate they're growing, private loans could someday surpass federally guaranteed loans, which total $60 billion nationally."