Americans now owe more in student loans than they do on their credit cards. According to an article by Mary Pilon in the Wall Street Journal:
Americans owe some $826.5 billion in revolving credit, according to June 2010 figures from the Federal Reserve. (Most of revolving credit is credit-card debt.) Student loans outstanding today — both federal and private — total some $829.785 billion.
This happened for two reasons. The first is that the recession has made Americans thriftier and more concerned with credit card debt. This means they’re working on paying off existing debt and also reducing their credit card spending.
This has also resulted, however, from the high cost of college and years of easy lending for education costs.
And debt, after all, is still debt, no matter what you bought with it.
