An Expensive Article

Recently I’ve been receiving a lot of credit card offers. I’m not going to lie, it seems like they’ve really started to sweeten the pot lately with some of the rewards. I’ve been hearing reward rumors for everything from free airline tickets to guarantees that all of my children will be beautiful and manually dexterous. Never the less, I’m still a little doubtful. I’ve never personally met a credit card company but I just don’t see why they would really care about my domestic traveling plans unless there was something in it for them. So I decided to conduct a little research in this area. After laboriously searching the internet for about a minute and a half, I reached two conclusions. First of all, somebody should make a Wikipedia page with all the answers that I am looking for, and secondly, it turns out that any old schmoe can put whatever he wants on Wikipedia and it becomes Gospel.

Armed with this knowledge I sprang into action. If a source is the only thing missing then I might as well be my own source. So I created a Wikipedia page on “student debt”. In this page that I wrote, I found all the necessary statistics and more! It really is an amazing source and I recommend that all of you check it out as soon as possible (search for “student debt” on Wikipedia making sure to use the quotation marks) before somebody officially finds it and shuts it down, which if it’s anything like the addition to the platypus page (plural: platypi) will probably be about 8 hours.

Anyways, my sources aren’t the important thing. What is important is what I made the sources say, and that is the fact that many college students are in debt. I know I sure am. As can be shown on Wikipedia, the facts break down into 4 major groups as follows: Average college debt: $17,120 (This one is actually true)Average student credit card debt: $2,200 (Also true)Average accumulated debt that the student owes their parents and says that they are going to pay back but really aren’t: $7,320 Average amount that your roommate says that you owe him even though you’re pretty sure that you paid him back that time you went to Applebee’s and he “forgot” his wallet: $6.75

As you can see by these startling statistics, clearly your roommate doesn’t know what he is talking about. But what does this all mean? How can we lower our debt and live within our means? Who really cares? I mean besides your parents. Fear not, because I have a few frugal suggestions that really make cents (ha!). First of all, before accepting any possible gift from a credit card company, why not take a look on EBay and see what it’s going for. If it is less than $2,200 then it is probably not worth it, also maybe you should get a job. I realize that this advice might be difficult to follow. According to recent reports from sources other than me, America is in what many experts call a “recession”. They usually follow this up with other fiscal nonsense such as “Sub-Prime”, “Nasdaq”, and “Dollars”. Many experts are blaming our economic problems on the falling cost of the dollar. Well I don’t know about you, but where I come from the dollar is pretty much always just worth $1. I bet these so called experts don’t even have their own Wikipedia page.

So how can we solve this problem? Well there are two schools of thought on that; first, to live within your means (i.e. don’t spend more than you make), and secondly, take the same approach that I use in doing homework, which is to ignore it until later. This latter approach may be great in helping me create Wikipedia pages; however, it has yet to make me any richer.

The Wikipedia Page That Was Deleted

(I made a Wikipedia page as a source for an article for The Chimes. Unfortunately it was deleted by 10:30 the next morning. If it had not been deleted, this is what it would have said)

STUDENT DEBT

Student debt, the debt that a student owes, has skyrocketed. While student debt has reached unprecedented proportions in the U.S. it is a fairly recent phenomenon. Twenty or thirty years ago, the parents of many of today’s current students simply paid for college with animal pelts. However, with the enactment of the Endangered Species Act as well as a switch from pelts to cash as the dominant currency form has left many parents and students not only unprepared to pay for college but also with a lot of useless animal pelts that they had been saving for their student’s college tuition.

However, tuition debt is not the only form of college debt. There are 4 major forms outlined below.

Average College Debt

The average American college debt for the average American college student is $17,120. Or roughly the equivalent of two and a half tanks of gas. This rising cost has sometimes been blamed by many Wikipedia editors for the nation’s chronic drug problem. If tuition weren’t so high, students would have the financial freedom to grow less profitable crops. The ability to cope with this amount of debt immediately after graduation is still developing in this country. Back in the day, many U.S. College students such as George Washington and Galileo could obtain successful prestigious jobs with only a degree from a more affordable online university. But with the advent of Facebook, however, many students found it difficult to get any real work done online without constantly being “super-poked” by someone.

Average Student Credit Card Debt

The average amount of credit card debt is $2,200. When you factor in that I don’t even have a credit card that means that somebody else is using theirs way too much, probably the girl who sits in front of me in my World Civ class. She has more pairs of shoes than an average male dormitory. Somebody should start a Netflix style shoe store for girls so they can wear all the shoes they want without spending the money to actually own something they are going to wear about as often as their wedding dress.

Credit Card Debt itself is blamed on a decline of the “Don’t Buy Stuff You Can’t Afford” financial philosophy. This concept has gradually been replaced by the much more popular “Just Use Your Credit Card Because Then the Credit Card Fairies Pay for It” philosophy.

Average Accumulated Debt That the Student Owes Their Parents and Says They Are Going To Pay Back But Really Aren’t

This type of debt averages approximately $7,320 per student according to a recent observational survey of disgruntled parents within the immediate family of my roommate. According to many experts this modern phenomenon has actually been going on for many years, however, it was previously known as the Advance In My Allowance Deficit. Wall Street watchdogs have called this the “leading cause of the lack of faith in the economy.” While many parents doubt that they will ever see the money again, some consider it an investment in keeping their progeny out of the house and in the street where she might meet somebody who will marry her and take her off her parents’ hands.

Average amount that your roommate says that you owe him even though you’re pretty sure that you paid him back that time you went to Applebee’s and he “forgot” his wallet: $6.75

While this may seem like a fairly complicated economic term, it basically boils down to the fact that your roommate vividly remembers every color and detail of the circumstances surrounding the one time that you had to borrow money from him, yet he cannot seem to recall when you paid him back, or the 23 times this semester when he borrowed money from you without ever paying you back. This type of lending is not limited to college students alone. It is said to be the cause behind the breakup of the Beatles and has even been referenced in the Bible. Following a dispute with his brother, Cain replied “Am I my brother’s keeper? But if you see him you tell him, I’m coming for my money.”

Interconnectivity of the various forms of Debt

There is a direct correlation between credit card debt and parental debt that isn’t going to get paid back. Usually the credit card debt goes up first, and then about a month later it again declines, however the parental debt increases by almost the same amount, plus or minus $6.75.