Daniel Carroll and Amy Higgins:

Many parents believe their children must get a college degree—especially if they want to have at least as comfortable a lifestyle as their parents had; yet the price of a college degree has been rising rapidly over the past three decades. As costs have risen, more and more students and their families have turned to education loans for financing. This trend, combined with the strong propensity for households to form among individuals of similar education levels, has led to much larger student loan debt burdens for households headed by young adults who have attended college. In the 1989 Survey of Consumer Finances, real (inflation-adjusted) average student loan debt for young households (those headed by someone between 22 and 29 years of age) with a college degree was $3,420. In 2010, the same average was $16,714, nearly a 400 percent increase. For households with some college, but without a college degree, average student loan debt rose about 270 percent.