"As college costs soar, students are charging more educational expenses to plastic, helping boost credit card debt to record levels," USA Today reports. "A new study to be released [today] by Sallie Mae, a college-financing company, finds that the average undergraduate carried $3,173 in credit card debt last year, the highest level since Sallie Mae began collecting this data in 1998. In 2004, the last time the study was done, students carried an average of $2,169 in card debt. The higher the grade level, the greater the card debt, according to Sallie Mae. In 2008, college seniors with at least one credit card graduated with an average of $4,138 in card debt, up 44% from 2004. By comparison, freshmen's average credit card debt jumped 27% to $2,038."