For anyone who doubts that the higher education bubble is real, look no further than this report by Doug Lederman of Inside Higher Ed.

CFO Survey Reveals Doubts About Financial Sustainability

Hardly a day goes by without some author or commentator predicting that the end is nigh for higher education, or significant portions of it. Such predictions understandably grate on many administrators and professors.

But what do those with the closest eyes on their own institutions’ bottom lines — chief college and university business officers — think? Turns out they’re not particularly upbeat, either — about their own colleges’ futures or the higher education landscape more generally.

In a new survey by Inside Higher Ed and Gallup, barely a quarter of campus chief financial officers (27 percent) express strong confidence in the viability of their institution’s financial model over five years, and that number drops in half (to 13 percent) when they are asked to look out over a 10-year horizon.

Asked to assess the sustainability of the business models of various sectors of higher education, they take a more negative than positive view on several of them (nonselective private and non-flagship public institutions, and for-profit colleges).

And more than 6 in 10 CFOs disagree or strongly disagree with the statement that “reports that a significant number of higher education institutions are facing existential financial crisis are overblown.”

“This is a ‘Houston, we have a problem’ report,” says Jane Wellman, a higher education finance expert. “People who know what they’re talking about think we have a problem down the road if some things don’t get fixed.”