There is a major debt crisis that is causing Americans to live in despair. The creditors are now targeting at the young people to get them used to running on the credit treadmill at a ripe young age. The large banks post up regularly right outside of university campuses offering young unemployed students credit cards pre-approved with credit limits of $5,000 or more for kids with no credit histories at all. All with the intent of getting students up to their necks in debt so once they graduate they will be riddled with credit card debt for a very long time.

This causes many problems for students. One detrimental problem is that kids need to take time away from studying to work more hours to pay off unnecessary credit card bills. Some situations force kids to drop all of their classes to get full time jobs to pay off their debts.

For anyone who has seen the award winning documentary 'Maxed Out' you can see first hand how bad a debt situation can affect students. There were two college students whose heartbroken parents were interviewed, both of whom took their own lives over their enormous debts that they owed. The persistence from collectors didn't at all help the situation. Plus many more kids fall into deep depression because of the stressful debt situation in.

These credit issuers even go to the extent of hiring other college kids to solicit their credit cards within the dormitories. Some students will make up to $15 for every student who signs up to get a credit card. These are only the tactics that I have heard about, although I am almost sure there are more that they use.

One way to counter this problem would be to teach students in high school before going off to college about the associated consequences that come with having lines of credit. There should be a core class developed into the curriculum of high school seniors teaching them on what the consequences could be if they misuse credit cards. The class should also teach kids how to properly budget their money to avoid any overwhelming debt problems in college.

Debt settlement is a sensible method of debt relief for the kids that have found themselves in a very bad debt situation that they can no longer bear to handle themselves. It will help kids save a lot of money and become debt free within a few years, so when they get out of school they will not be burdened with a large debt mountain over their shoulders.

Steve Martin is a debt analyst with the US Consumer Advocate, which practices debt settlement.