Sunday's column about high debt loads shouldered by college grads prompted this dissent, published today, from the president of Macalester College, Brian Rosenberg.

The flaw in Rosenberg's argument comes in the example he uses to illustrate his point: his own school. Yes, compared to the total cost of attending Macalester, average debt of $19,000 seems reasonable in light of a total sticker price that exceeds $200,000. But most young people don't go to private colleges with big endowments that can be used to defray the total cost. They attend public universities, where the debt/total cost ratio is much more out of whack.

I also heard from a lot of readers who are struggling with crushing pyaments on private loans.

Now, maybe you thought private lenders got out of the higher education business a couple of years ago, after Congress ended a subsidy that the government used to pay them to provide and administer loans. That subsidiy applied only to federally insured loans, which are now granted and administered directly by the federal government.

Private loans are what families turn to in addition to college-provided financial aid. Here's what the Wall Street Journal said about them earlier this week:

Which means students and their families are borrowing more than ever.

This experience, from one reader, was not atypical:

On Wednesday, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau announced that it had launched a wide-ranging look into the private loan market, which it described as "one of the least understood credit markets." They're looking for input from lenders and borrowers, with comments due in the next 60 days. You can learn more about it here.