By Hon. John C. Ninfo, II, Founder, Credit Abuse Resistance Education (CARE)

There are more than 1.5 million bankruptcies filed each year in this country. What is more alarming is that in the last 10 years the average credit card debt, a major cause of those bankruptcies, is up 152% and bankruptcy filings among young people between the ages of 18 and 25 have increased 96%. Robert Manning, an international expert on consumer credit and the author of "The Credit Card Nation," recently estimated that between 7% and 10% of college students drop out of school because of consumer debt issues.