More undergraduate students have cards, and more of them appear to be using their cards
regularly. The median credit card debt, which remained fairly steady between 1998 and 2000,
increased by a startling 43% in 2001, from $1,236 to $1,770. This indicates that the 50% of
students in the sample who carry the lowest balances have increased the debt level substantially
in just one year.
At the time we collected this year's sample data, only 14% of all students with credit cards had a
zero balance, indicating that fully 86% either had not paid off previous charges or had charged
something within the current month