Student Loans on Rise for Kindergarten

Unable to afford private school, more and more parents are turning to loans years before their children start college.  And, I thought the trillion dollars for college loans outstanding were bad enough, but these pre-college loans are insane.  Have we as a society completely lost our minds? 

According to "Smart Money," approximately 20% of families that applied for aid to pay for their children's kindergarten through 12th grade private school education had incomes of $150,000 or more.  Further, according to "Smart Money, these loans can be very expensive.  The interest rates, which can be fixed or variable, range from around 4% to roughly 20%.  (Lower rates are given to parents with higher FICA scores.)  And, the loan sizes can be large.  The average loan size given by Your Tuition Solution is $14,000.  First Marblehead (love that name, which is very appropriate for those insane parents) loans are up to $30,000 a year.  At the Lake Trust Credit Union that's headquartered in Lansing, Mich., borrowers can have up to $40,000 outstanding in so-called K-12 education loans.