Attention Undergrads -- you're still paying for all those classes you skipped.

Graph made by Mark Kantrowitz of FinAid.org

We've reached a momentous, but little celebrated moment in financial history. Credit card debt has been surpassed by student loans (including both federal and private). Let's give a big 800 billion cheers for education!

You can see this trend in the graph to the left. Notice how in 2008, credit card debt peaked and has now declined, while student loan debt has gone up at a steadily increasing rate. The modern family unit (mom, dad, and the federal government) have been paying a larger and larger bill, and for those who can't afford it, the slack has been taken up by private lenders. Unlike credit card bills, which fluctuate with the larger economic climate, student loan debt just kept going up and up.

Education is always a good investment, right? With costs of tuition rising by 8% per year, one might expect students would soak up every valuable minute of classroom instruction. That hasn't been the case. While tuition rates have gone up steadily, student attendance has gone down. This trend has been especially strong in recent years. According to Blair Hedges, a biology teacher,