The average college student will spend more than that on their first car.
Or buy a junker as most of us did. Kids today spend more money in iPods and other crap than they do on anything substantial. I rode a bicycle between classes and the dorm.
The only debt my wife and I ever had were school loans and a mortgage. Then again, 40 years ago the instant-gratification generation hadn't been born.
And to those with an $8k balance at 21% APR... F-'em if they're too stooopid to figger it out.
I had no debts when I graduated college in 1979. My father bought 100 shares of General Motors stock when I was a toddler under a state law that exempted it from taxes until I turned 18. The stocks were sold when I turned 18 and the dividends plus the stock sale paid for two years of college at a state university. The other two years were paid for through my hard work, social security payments (my father died during my junior year) and some scholarship money.