Average Credit Card Debt For College Students

Hey guys, I'm a 20 yr old college junior and have recently racked up a lot of credit card debt pretty fast. I'm kind of scared about paying it off so I'm curious how much credit card debt (for money spent just on personal stuff, NOT including tuition fees for school, etc.) the average college student has?

I have about $2,500 now... is that a lot???
One note: I do have a job that I got just last month.... I'm gonna be getting about 750 at the end of the month but a portion of that (about 300) goes to rent...
And I got myself into the debt mostly from a lot of traveling to see my bf on the other side of the country but also frivolous things like shopping for clothes, which I'm going to be more careful about from now on... :P

ha 10k cc debt and 90 in student loans but pay my payments on time

2008-04-25 21:13:43 by one x sweet

Student lending giant Sallie Mae reports that the average college student's amount of credit card debt is skyrocketing. I talked to one recent ...

Hi All. I'm a recent college grad who is fairly new to the workforce and is ready to get rid of her credit card debt!! I was fortunate enought not to borrow much in student loans (a total of about $9,000), however by grad time I owed about 9 thousand in credit card debt. Now I am ready to get rid of this burden. I know that this sounds horrible, but my situation was very different than that of the average student. I am a mother and was raising my daughter the whole time during college. Instead of working full time I focused on my studies and only worked part time. Needless to say this made everything harder but in the end it was worth it. Also, I'm not looking for an overnight solution. It took me six years to accumulate this debt so I know it wont disappera overnight. I'm just looking for the best way to go about it. Please help!

The amount of people throughout the United States who find themselves in debt continues to rise. For you, raising a child while being a college student made your financial a difficult one. For most, however, debt is the result of extraneous spending, poor money management, or both.

Below is a list of ten tips to getting out of debt. Some are easier to follow than others, but all are designed to help alleviate the problem - so take comfort in the fact that you can solve your debt, though it will be a tough process...

Ten peices of advice from allbusiness.com:
1. Create a realistic monthly budget for your expenses. List all monthly bills and necessities and make sure they are covered by your monthly income. Allow only the money remaining after the bills are paid to be spent elsewhere. Stay within your budget guidelines.
2. Pay off the balance on the credit card with the highest interest rate first (unless the balance on any card exceed 50 percent of your credit limit). First, pay all balances to below 50 percent of the card limit because balances above this level cause your credit score to diminish. Then pay off the balance on the credit card with the highest interest rate. If the account was opened within the past year and you have additional older accounts, close it after it is paid off. Next month do the same with the card that has the next highest interest rates. Continue until you reach the credit card with the most favorable terms (i.e., low interest rates). Use this as your preferred account. You need only four open accounts to establish a positive credit history.
3. Learn to use cash instead of credit cards. Have one primary credit card and use it only for emergencies or major necessities, such as a new refrigerator if the current one stops working. Put your credit card in a safe place, not available for everyday use. Also, do not accept increases on your credit card limit above an amount you can easily pay off in three months.
4. Use direct deposit for your paychecks. Also have a limit on how much you will allow yourself to withdraw each week and month.
5. Cut down on your discretionary expenses. This includes dining out, overusing your cell phone, and other such unnecessary expenses.
6. Evaluate your living situation. Your housing costs should be no more than 33 percent of your household income, including mortgage payments, property tax, and both property and homeowner's insurance. You can shop around for lower insurance rates, refinance your home mortgage, and look for more economical utility plans.
7. Avoid borrowing money to get out of debt, especially consolidation loans. Many people think this is a way of helping them get out of debt. However, consolidation loans are simply a means of combining debt. You could end up losing everything because you’ve tied it all up in one loan. If you must borrow, see if a friend or family member can lend you money, since the interest rates should be low or nonexistent.
8. Contact your creditors and try to work out repayment plans. Many creditors are willing to work with you in a manner that will help them get their money without having to resort to debt collectors.
9. Become a savvy shopper. Look for deals, bargains, and savings. You’d be surprised at how much you can save if you take the time to shop around. Check out the price comparison Web sites such as Shopping.com and BizRate.com.
10. Look for extra ways to make some money. From part-time work to a garage sale to taking in a boarder, there are many ways to bring in some additional income.

If all else fails, seek out help from a debt reduction specialist or counselors [see link below] who can help you formulate a plan for getting out of debt and staying out. Just make sure that you check out the service in advance. Many companies are simply taking advantage of people in debt and charging them high service charges.

For MSN Money's take on credit card debt, follow this link-
http://moneycentral.msn.com/content/Bank ing/creditcardsmarts/P74808.asp

For more advice, these are also helpful allbusiness.com links-
Should I Borrow Money to Get out of Debt: http://www.allbusiness.com/3915481-1.htm l
To Get Matched with a Relief Specialist:
http://www.allbusiness.com/3776688-1.htm l

Good luck in climbing out of debt. Try to modify your personal finance outlook in doing so, and you should be well on your way.

2007-06-05 10:19:01 by true blue

The bar graph shows freshman at $1585 in debt.

The bar graph represents the average credit card debt for U.s college students. The average credit card debt for juniors exceeds the debt of sophomores by $421, and the average credit card debt for seniors exceeds the debt for sophomores by $1265. The combined credit card debt for a sophomore, a junior and a senior is $6429. Determine the average credit card debt for a sophomore , a junior and a senior.

Let S = debt of a sophomore
S+421 = debt of a junior
S+1265 = debt of a senior
S + (S+421) + (S+1265) = 6429
3S = 6429 - 421 - 1265
3S = 4743
S = 1581

So a sophomore's average debt is $1581.
A junior's is $1581 + $421 = $2002
A senior's is $1581+$1265 = $2846

2009-10-01 15:21:19 by TylerB

College students are not the brightest bulbs in the box. Banks give college students credit cards because they are more likely to get into so much debt, they can't pay and end up owing three times as much after late fees and penalties. Doesn't say much for our college educated or our institutional learning facilities. These are the same people that are voting for Obama because he promises them things like a free college education. Nothing is free. Government debt is just like a credit card. The debt per person in this country is over $100,000. It would take a person making the average wage in this country 20 to 30 years to pay that off. With the change Obama is bringing, you will be lucky to have change in your pocket to spend after he destroys the economy.
I didn't know getting into debt over your head makes you smart. You must be one of those college students.

Young people support Obama because young people are BRILLIANT and know EVERYTHING! Didn’t YOU when YOU were young? Yeah… Right.

The sad part is the handful of older people that support him too, Proof positive the left side of the IQ bell curve is alive and well. They don’t call um leftists for nothing.
Anyway, back to the youth. Have you EVER met an old person that didn’t think they were absolutely stupid in their 20’s? Have you ever heard, if I only knew THEN what I know NOW? Any candidate widely supported by youth can’t possibly have any hope of being a positive impact on anything.

Thank God he’ll crash and burn soon. Pay no nevermind to the childish, self centered, drug and booze abusing youthful Obama supporters, they wouldn’t know a good idea from a beer bong. They’re mostly concerned about appearing superior by voting for a black man asking for change.

2008-05-19 23:15:16 by Dick H

After reading many articles geared towards college grads I was able to find out quickly that most college grads are, on average, $16,000 in debt upon graduation. My questions is where are these kids going to school? Because from my experiences, college could never be that cheap! In December I will graduate and receive a degree in Business and I will also have $50,000 + looming over my head. This is something that has kept me awake many nights. I am stressed about this amount of debt let alone having to find a job that can pay for my loans as well as my future costs of living. While I lay there on my dilapidated bunk bed in my crappy dorm room and hear fellow peers walk to the community showers wearing their bright pink flip flops, which by the way can only save you from a few of the things growing in those showers, I truly ask myself where did my $50,000 go? Obviously not towards new housing facilities or better food in the cafeteria. Did it go towards hiring higher educated professors who will mold my mind and allow me to become a wonderfully average person or did it go towards that new university statue we didn’t really need that greets our visitors at the back entrance? But all these anxieties will just be met by new ones when I enter this “real world” everyone always talks about. I know I will be lucky to get a job making $35,000. Most of the time it seems like odds are against us middle-class citizens. God knows the government won’t help us fund college and on the other hand my parents can’t financially help me either. I could look to my superior mind to help get scholarships but thanks to my local public high school, my brain is rotted. So here I am about to head back for one final semester and all I have to show for it is loans as far as the eye can see. All I can say is at least I didn’t fall to the temptation of a credit card aimed at college students. I have no doubt that I could have racked up another $50,000 just paying for textbooks and pizza.
For those of you telling me to go to a small community college, I did for two years. $48,000+ of this debt came from two and a half years at a private university.

I got through college with $11,700 in debt plus about $1,500 on my credit card, but it could have almost not happened. I originally applied to public universities but couldn't get enough financial aid (including federal loans) to cover the total cost even with my parents' contribution. So I started in community college, which I paid for without going into debt by working part time and during the summer. I got almost straight A's in community college because I knew I would need to compete when I transfer. I decided to apply for college in a different state where tuition was cheaper. I also applied to a private college in that state but didn't expect to be able to afford it. I figured I could either live in the other state until I became a resident or I could join the military if it was still too expensive. It ended up that when I got my financial aid offers, the private school gave me a huge scholarship and I could finally afford to go. It was an affluent school that was probably trying to attract students with high grades in a wealthy region of the country. I was pretty lucky though because some of the people at that same school had $30,000 in debt or more.

You'll probably do fine in the real world, but you might have to wait until some of the baby boomers retire before you get an opportunity to move up.

2007-07-19 12:09:01 by Kim D