this is kind of the perfect example - in theory, the secondary market should correctly price the ISAs based on the quality of the students being graduated.

But there is a significant lag built in on the pricing. It would probably be a few cycles of students, and you wouldn't even know they're not getting good jobs for a number of months if not years. Especially given Austen's kind of a celeb, Lambda could raised a few bigger and bigger rounds in that time period - and their numbers would look fantastic to potential investors with the cash coming in up front. If they played it right, they could maybe even IPO before those secondary ISAs ever get properly priced. Financial innovation at its finest!