Learn how to manage what you owe

How did U.S. students rack up a staggering $1.5 trillion in college debt? The answer is shining a blinding light on the need for financial education. One of your jobs while pursuing higher education is to fully understand how student loans work. That means sharpening your financial literacy both to avoid unnecessary debt and to position yourself to comfortably repay your loans once you’re out of school.

The student debt crisis has been in the headlines lately, and for good reason. Student loans are now second only to mortgages as the country’s principal category of consumer debt. There are more than 44 million student borrowers with a total of $1.45 trillion in debt — the average graduate from the class of 2016 entered the workforce with more than $37,000 in student loans.