In this essay, the author discusses how affirmative action contributed to an unnatural rise in enrollments in college. In considering the higher education bubble, he makes the case that as the opposition to preferences continues to build, the momentum of this trend will only increase as funding shrinks. He offers some tentative answers to a series of questions, which he has tried to arrange in a logical sequence. Did affirmative action help cause the higher education bubble in the first place? What are the costs of preferences? Will the purported benefits of preferences diminish if the bubble bursts? Does the outcome of a cost-benefit analysis really matter; that is, even if preferential programs cost money, will they likely be scaled back as money becomes scarcer, or is the commitment to these programs so stubborn that they will be defended at all costs? Finally, with or without a burst bubble, where are racial preferences likely headed? (Contains 7 footnotes.)