Young adults are graduating from college with more debt than ever before, and increasing levels of it come from credit cards. Half of today’s college students graduate with student loan debt that averages $19,400--twice what it was a decade ago. Their debt to credit card companies, some surveys suggest, may average more than $2,700. These are some of the conclusions in a U.S. General Accounting Office (GAO) report released this past summer.

Commissioned at the instigation of U.S. Rep. Louise Slaughter (D-N.Y.), "College Students and Credit Cards" answers questions many parents, consumer groups, and state and national legislators have been raising as credit card companies expand their nets to capture a younger market. A decade ago, students under 21 had to have a co-signer to qualify for a credit card. Today, 18-year-olds can get a card without a credit history or an income.

The GAO report found that students used the credit cards for a variety of expenses that included books, supplies, food, clothing, entertainment, school fees and tuition. They also used them for emergencies, such as to buy plane tickets or to pay for medical care.

The pitch made to students is hard sell. One student told GAO investigators that in a single year she received more than 100 credit card solicitations through the mail. One-third of college students got their credit cards through the mail. The other approach companies use is direct solicitation on campus; they set up tables and hawk their products offering incentives to the students to apply and bonuses to their salespeople for each application received.

Although students don’t have much money, credit card companies recognize that they are worth an investment for the long term. About half of all students work part time, earning $4,500 a year. Students who rely on family support receive about $300 a month, the GAO found. But when today’s students get out of college, they’ll earn a lifetime average of $1 million more than their peers who didn’t attend college.

Many students don’t do the math to figure out how severe the consequences of not paying off credit card balances can be. The GAO report includes a chart that makes the point painfully clear. A student with a credit card loan of $2,000 and an interest rate of 19 percent who pays back the loan at $40 per month will have incurred interest charges of $1,994 by the time the debt is paid back in eight years.

In response to pressure from students and families, a few universities are limiting on-campus solicitation of credit card applications, the GAO found. Some state legislatures are considering laws that would limit the companies’ on-campus presence and force them to provide greater disclosure of their policies. Some colleges and universities offer credit education programs and credit counseling services, recognizing that retention rates can be affected by students’ financial situations.

The issue of student indebtedness promises to stay on the public’s mind. The Bankruptcy Reform Act, passed by the U.S. House of Representatives this year, makes it more difficult for students to declare personal bankruptcy and requires loan repayment even if they are successful in declaring bankruptcy. As the bill was being considered, legislators like Rep. Slaughter were unable to include restrictions on credit card marketing practices to college students. The credit card companies, who back the act, prevailed.

Something happens to 18-year-olds when they hit the home stretch in high school. Soon after their college applications are in the mail, the students’ academic gallop to the finish line turns into a lackadaisical lope. As many have noted, they lose interest in school, take on part-time jobs in the afternoons and are distracted by parties.

And why not? Unless they screw up royally, the grades they get as seniors won’t affect the acceptance decisions four-year colleges make based on students’ prior performance. Most community colleges are open admissions institutions. Students feel they’ve paid their dues and can move from the hustle to the slide.

Does this loss of engagement have anything to do with the need of about one-third of college freshmen to enroll in remedial or developmental courses?

Stanford University education professor Michael Kirst believes it does. Author of the recently released report, "Overcoming the High School Senior Slump: New Education Policies," Kirst sees a big disconnect in the message high school students get from colleges for the period between admission and matriculation.

For one thing, the students don’t seem to realize they will have to take placement exams when they enter college. Even students who achieved high marks in their all-important junior year of high school will fail to retain math concepts, for example, if they don’t study math as seniors. Also, because community colleges have open admissions, high school seniors may get a false notion about what level of academic preparedness two-year colleges expect from their first-year students.

The advent of early admissions decisions, which colleges release in December, is almost guaranteeing that the senior year of high school will be a write-off for students. Yet everyone is paying a price for this.

A study by the national Commission on the High School Senior Year finds that seniors lag behind their international counterparts in key academic measures. This slippage occurs in the upper grades. U.S. fourth-graders outperform almost every other nation in science, for example, but U.S. 12th-graders are close to last place in science.

The commission recommends a long-overdue rethinking of how high school is organized. In addition, it pleads with postsecondary institutions to communicate more clearly with high schools about college performance expectations. The payoff could be a better qualified pool of freshmen to teach down the road.