College students are hopeless at estimating their student loans

• About 28% of students with federal loans said that they had no student debt
  
• Six in 10 don’t really know how much they borrowed to pay for first year
• College student wins case forcing estranged parents to pay her tuition
  
• Half of black college students graduate with more than $25,000 in student loan debt
  
• US treasury collects $150m in student loan payments from social security benefits
  

Americans have more than $1.2tn in student loans – at least, they think they do.

Many college freshmen, at least, are not actually aware how they are paying their tuition – an indication of a larger trend of students taking on debt blindly, unaware how much they are actually borrowing.