Paul West at the Baltimore Sun finds Hillary Clintons numbers just don’t add up when it comes to comparing bankruptcies with graduation rates.

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York is taking a populist line in her campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination.

“We had more people going bankrupt last year than graduating from college. Yet, these are all invisible to the president and his administration,” Clinton told a gathering of liberal activists in Washington last week.

The “Issues” section of her campaign website, under the heading “Strengthening The Middle Class,” repeats the claim. “Last year, more people went bankrupt in our country than graduated from college.”

Actually, fewer than half as many people went bankrupt last year than graduated from college. A total of 597,965 individuals filed for personal bankruptcy in 2006, according to official statistics compiled by the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts. The U.S. Department of Education estimates that 1,456,000 students received bachelor’s degrees from four-year colleges in 2006.

I also thought the explanation from the Clinton campaign was apropo considering another Clinton explanation:

The initial explanation about her claim from the Clinton campaign: It depends on what your definition of the word “year” is. The campaign cited statistics for the 12-month period ending June 30, 2006, in which 1,453,008 personal bankruptcies were filed (most came in 2005, during the final push before the law changed).