One obstacle to this is the boom period from 1982 through the tech bubble-burst, to the housing bubble-burst.

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Many schools saw applications stagnate during the heady days of the late 90s dot-com boom, only for demand to soar when the bubble burst and budding tycoons decided they could safely step away from the business cauldron for a while to improve their skills.

CNN: MBA applications soar amid gloom

MBIA, and its peers like Ambac Financial Group, traditionally operated in the somewhat routine business of insuring municipal bonds but expanded into the mortgage market as the housing boom swelled and began writing insurance on mortgage-related instruments that turned sour en masse when the bubble burst.

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