Student debt, delayed missionaries

I have had several recent conversations about the growing problem of student debt. It would seem that this is one of the major reasons why we are not seeing young missionaries come to the field for long-term service. They come for a week or two, but they can't come for career until they pay off their student loans and other debts. Something needs to be done about this and it needs to start with parents. Do parents go into debt to pay for non-tangible things (things that can't be sold to pay off the debt) like restaurants, entertainment and vacations? Are credit cards (that are paid off at a minimum rate) used to purchase groceries, fuel and clothing? If you buy a shirt on sale for $10 but put it on a credit card with a big balance on it, your cheap shirt will end up costing 2 or 3 times more than what you spent. If parents are laying down a pattern that "if we can't afford it, we'll charge it", then kids grow up thinking that debt is ok... no problem... everyone has debt... One person told us about a student who has a computer and spends a lot of time playing computer games while their student debt is piling high. Apparently, the student would rather play games than get a job to start paying off the debt.

When we got married, we did not have any debt. In 27 years we have only had a mortgage. We told our kids when they went to college that we would not be taking out loans for them. We were going to trust God to provide. Our son in his 4th year of grad school has no school debts and our daughter who will graduate from undergrad in a few months has no debt. Not all students can pay for college the way what our kids did but they can equally find a way. Missions students should be especially challenged to keep their debt very low so they can go to the field shortly after college. The article Debt: the four-letter word that keeps missionaries at home has some good points about this. This article gives a good place to start.