However dire the predictions, higher education leaders, government officials and consumer advocacy groups have started to examine ways to help control the debt problem.

Just last week, the state of Connecticut convened a special committee of administrators from public and private colleges throughout the state to discuss problems associated with credit cards on campus.

Deborrah Glenn-Long, who is the director of the student financial services center at Yale University, participated in the meeting and said the committee highlighted the way different schools are affected by debt.

Over the 12 years she has worked in the financial aid office at Yale, for example, Glenn-Long says the majority of students she has seen with credit card debt have it as a result of what she calls "unnecessary" spending or borrowing. Although the scope of the problem is small, she says potential effects can be devastating.

"I consider it a problem even if it's for only two percent of the population--the consequences are so dire," she says.

An interesting point made at the meeting, Glenn-Long says, was that community college students, who are usually older than traditional four-year college students, often take on credit card debt to meet the difference between the whole cost of tuition and the amount of financial aid they receive.

"If you happen to have that gap, a credit card is an easy way to meet it," she says.

Back at Harvard, DeGreeff says that the problem is not especially pronounced, but it is nonetheless a big issue for first-year students who are new to the financial independence.