Andrew, maria and joey got to talking about maria's older brother, chris, who can't pay his bills and has just declared personal bankruptcy at the age of 24. this means he has gone to a judge and said he cannot pay his debts and has asked to be relieved of the responsibility to pay them. he now has a bad credit rating and finds it both difficult and expensive to borrow money.
chris had been a pretty good student in high school and college and had taken what appeared to be a pretty good job. he was happily married with a child, and had been living in a nice house and driving a good car. in other words, he was the perfect "family man." what happened that caused his life to crash?
maria felt that the problem was chris' student loans. chris didn't want to take any money from their folks and he went to a pretty expensive college. when he had to start paying back the loans, he just ran out of money.
joey was more skeptical and asked maria about the $40,000 sport utility vehicle that chris drives, wondering how he can afford to pay for that on top of his student loans and house mortgage.
andrew wondered why chris' wife wasn't working to pay the bills.
maria became very defensive about her brother, explaining that part of his trouble was due to the fact that he was having to pay 24 percent interest on his credit cards. and because he owes $20,000 on all those credit cards, he was paying about $4,800 to the credit card companies just to pay for the interest each year. maria felt that the credit card companies pushed chris over the top.
then, andrew's mother entered the room with some snacks and suggested that poor planning may have led to chris' downfall.
which of the following does not contribute to chris's financial problems?
a. the interest rate charged on the debt.
b. the expensive lifestyle that he has.
c. the fact that he graduated from college.
d. the amount of debt he owes.