All Blog Posts from Couric & Co.

Since 1989, the National Debt Clock has been a fixture in Manhattan's Times Square. After you've dropped a cool $200 on a Broadway Show, a glimpse of its ominous ticker might deter you from that $20 nightcap.

And now, that clock has run out of numbers. Our national debt, now at $10.2, is one digit larger than the spots available on the sign.

When real estate mogul Seymour Durst created the clock back in 1989, the debt was at $2.7 trillion. Since 2003, it has grown by half a trillion each year, and the bailout Congress just signed will likely kick that number up even higher by the end of 2008.

But rather than retiring the debt sign, the Dursts will redesign it to include enough spaces for a quadrillion.

Expanding the credit line when money is tight - isn't that how we got into this mess in the first place? The debt clock literally is a sign of the times.

This post was written by Guy Campanile, a producer for the CBS Evening News.

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The impact of the credit crunch on Wall Street, the real estate industry and corporate America is well documented. What's been given less attention is how severely small business has been affected in the past 12 months by the tightening of credit.

Florida small business has been hit especially hard in the wake of the real estate market collapse there. Regional and local banks burned by bad mortgages have become totally adverse to risk. Entrepreneurs eager to start their own business are finding it nearly impossible to secure loans of any size.

If you question the effect on the economy, take this statistic into consideration: small business represents 70 percent of the job growth in the United States. Without small business there are no new jobs. And if people aren't working, they aren't paying their mortgages – or buying homes. Many small businesses need loans to meet payroll or inventory. They too are being denied.

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New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo started looking into the lucrative, $85 billion college loan industry shortly after his election in November. What began as a probe into possible kickbacks to school officials for steering students to preferred lenders has widened to envelop a federal education official and the chancellor of New York's state university system.

CBS News producer Phil Hirschkorn has been reporting on the probe and has the latest developments here.

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On tonight's CBS Evening News, our colleague Sharyn Alfonsi looks at the higher cost of higher education, and how more students are being driven into debt. Here's a preview. - Ed.

There were a lot of things I loved about being a college student.

I went to Ole Miss, so it was all about classes in the Grove, tailgating on Saturdays and perfecting the art of smuggling bourbon into football games. (Key words: Ziploc bags and masking tape).

I had such a great time in Oxford that it’s amazing my four years there didn’t turn into five or six. The reason I ultimately moved into the real world was simple: I was sick of being broke.

I remember putting my debit card into the ATM, selecting WITHDRAWL, $20, and then waiting. One of two things would happen next. If you were lucky, you’d hear the delightful sound of money cranking towards you. If you weren’t lucky, you’d get a disappointing silence and a more disappointing message on the screen: INSUFFICIENT FUNDS.

Being cash-strapped in college has always been part of the deal. But these days, going deep into debt is becoming just as common. Among students with loans, the average debt since 1993 has doubled from $9,250 to $19,200. That's a 58 percent increase -- after accounting for inflation.

What’s going on? ...

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