"Today [the private National Bureau of Economic Research] issued a report tackling the subject of student lending," a Chronicle of Higher Education news blog reports. "Their conclusion: 'We show that the rising empirical importance of familial wealth and income in determining college attendance is consistent with increasingly binding credit constraints in the face of rising tuition costs and returns to schooling.' What's all that mean? An official with the National Bureau of Economic Research, who asked that he not be identified by name, says the professors appear to saying, 'College costs are increasing, students are having a tougher time borrowing money, and therefore poorer students are having a harder time attending.'"