Sixty percent of parents are already carrying school-related debt heading into this fall, and 27% of them owe $1,000 or more before a single September purchase, according to a survey published by Accredited Debt Relief in mid-August. Read that again: this isn’t debt from this year’s shopping. It’s the balance still sitting there from the last one, or the one before that.

If you read our back-to-school budgeting guide back in June, that piece was about getting ahead of the $858 average spend before Prime Day turned into a credit card emergency. This is the other half of that story — for the 6 in 10 parents where “get ahead of it” already didn’t happen. You’re not behind because you did something wrong. You’re behind because school costs compound faster than paychecks do, and apparently that’s most families, not a few unlucky ones.

Quick Verdict

Parents carrying school-related debt right now	60%, per Accredited Debt Relief’s survey of 1,052 K-12 parents
Already owe $1,000+ before fall spending starts	27%
Still plan to spend $1,000+ per child anyway	86% of that $1,000+ group
Parents planning to take on debt this fall	45%, up from 34% two years ago — Credit Karma/Qualtrics survey
Expect to add to an existing balance this year	63%
Likely to use BNPL for back-to-school	24%, per NerdWallet’s 2026 report
Likely to go into credit card debt specifically	19%
What to do about it	Stop treating it as this year’s problem — it’s a rolling balance. Triage by interest rate, not by which app it’s on.

Three Surveys, One Uncomfortable Pattern

I don’t love citing three separate surveys in one post, but the alternative is pretending this is a single data point when it’s actually a trend showing up everywhere researchers looked this summer.

Accredited Debt Relief’s survey (1,052 parents of K-12 kids, fielded in late May) found that 60% already carry school-related debt and that more than half of those parents — 53% — say they’re relying on financing more than they were three years ago. Credit Karma’s Qualtrics-run survey (1,032 parents, fielded late June into July) found something adjacent but distinct: 45% of parents plan to take on new debt for this year’s shopping specifically, up from 34% two years ago, and 63% expect to add to a balance they already have. NerdWallet’s Harris Poll survey (582 parents, fielded in early June) put a number on the method: 24% likely to lean on buy now, pay later, 19% likely to go into credit card debt outright.

Different sample sizes, different survey houses, different exact wording. Same shape. Whichever number you trust most, the direction doesn’t change: more parents are financing back-to-school this year than last, and a majority of them are doing it on top of a balance, not from zero.

How Much School-Related Debt Are Parents Actually Carrying?

Here’s the breakdown from Accredited Debt Relief’s data, since it’s the one that measured existing balances rather than intentions:

1. 60% of parents carry some school-related debt heading into this fall’s spending.
2. 27% already owe $1,000 or more, before this year’s supplies, clothes, or electronics get added to the tab.
3. 32% are carrying it specifically as a credit card balance, versus 22% on a buy now, pay later plan and 13% on a cash advance.
4. 86% of the parents already at $1,000+ still plan to spend at least $1,000 more per child this fall — meaning the debt and the new spending aren’t competing for the same dollars in most households. They’re stacking.
5. 54% still have open school-related debt when holiday shopping starts. For a lot of families, “back-to-school debt” and “holiday debt” are the same rolling balance with a new label slapped on twice a year.

That last point is the one worth sitting with. This isn’t a seasonal expense that resolves itself by Halloween. For over half the parents carrying it, back-to-school debt is still open when Black Friday hits.

Why Klarna and the Credit Card Look Identical on the Statement, But Aren’t

Say you’re carrying $600 on a credit card and $600 across two Klarna Pay-in-4 plans. On paper, same amount owed. In practice, they behave nothing alike, and treating them the same is how people end up paying more than they need to.

The credit card balance is compounding at whatever your APR is — 22% to 28% is typical territory in 2026 — for as long as you carry it, no end date attached. The Klarna balance is a fixed four-payment schedule at 0% interest, unless you miss a payment, in which case Klarna charges a flat late fee (up to $7, capped at 25% of the order) rather than ongoing interest. We laid out the full fee and credit-reporting comparison in our Klarna vs. Affirm breakdown — worth a read if you’re not sure which of your open plans is actually costing you money versus just taking up mental space.

The credit reporting difference matters here too. Affirm reports Pay-in-4 activity to Experian and TransUnion; Klarna’s Pay-in-4 generally doesn’t hit your file unless it goes to collections. We went deep on what BNPL debt does and doesn’t do to your credit score if that’s part of what’s making the balance feel heavier than it is. Short version: a Klarna plan sitting open isn’t dragging your score down the way a maxed-out card is. It’s still money you owe. It’s just not the same kind of owe.

The triage that actually saves money: pay down the interest-bearing balance first — the credit card, the cash advance if it carries a rate — and let the 0%-interest BNPL installments run on their normal schedule as long as you’re not going to miss a payment. Paying off a Klarna plan early doesn’t save you anything, since there’s no interest accruing to avoid. Paying off a 24% APR card balance early saves you real money every single month it’s gone.

What to Actually Do With the Balance You Already Have

Six steps, roughly in the order they matter:

1. List every open balance in one place — every app, not just the credit card. Nobody sees the total. Klarna doesn’t know what you owe Affirm. Your credit card issuer doesn’t know about either. If you’ve got school debt spread across three or four places, the total is probably bigger than the number sitting in your head, because you’re only mentally tracking whichever one you looked at most recently. Our debt payoff apps roundup covers free tools built specifically to pull every balance into one view and model an actual payoff date instead of a vague plan to “pay it down eventually.”

2. Rank by interest rate, not by balance size or which one feels most urgent. A $300 card balance at 24% APR costs you more every month than a $900 Klarna plan at 0%. Pay the expensive debt first regardless of which number looks scarier.

3. Don’t add BNPL on top of an existing card balance without doing the math first. Nineteen percent of shoppers say they’ll go into credit card debt this year, and 24% say they’ll lean on BNPL — for a lot of households that’s not either/or, it’s both. Adding a new 0% Klarna plan doesn’t cost you interest, but it does add another fixed payment competing with your card minimum for the same paycheck. If the card is already maxed, a new BNPL plan on top of it is how a manageable balance turns into a missed-payment cascade.

4. If the card balance is the real problem, look at what it’s actually costing you before deciding it’s unsolvable. A balance transfer to a 0% intro card, or a straightforward payoff plan through one of the debt payoff apps above, can turn “I don’t know when this ends” into an actual date on a calendar. That date is the thing that keeps people paying extra instead of just making the minimum forever.

5. Set what’s left of this year’s back-to-school spending against what you can pay in cash, not against what’s left on your credit limit. Available credit isn’t available money. If you’re one of the 86% of already-in-debt parents still planning to spend $1,000+ per child, decide now which parts of that are non-negotiable and which can wait, get financed 0%, or get skipped.

6. If you’re not sure the balance is even accurate, check it. A missed payment that got reported wrong, or a BNPL account that somehow shows up as delinquent when you never missed one, is worth disputing rather than assuming. Our guide on vetting what finance apps actually report covers how to check your file before you assume the worst about a number you haven’t actually verified.

Who This Actually Applies To

If your $1,000+ is entirely on 0%-interest BNPL plans: you’re in better shape than the headline makes it sound. Keep the payment schedule, don’t miss one, and don’t let the existence of open plans talk you into believing you’re “already in debt” the same way a revolving card balance means it. Different problem, different urgency.

If any part of that balance is a revolving credit card: that’s the one to attack first, and the one where the 45%-planning-to-add-more-debt statistic should actually worry you. Every month it sits there at 22%+ APR, it gets more expensive to have carried.

If you’re in the 54% who still have last year’s school debt open: the debt isn’t seasonal for you anymore — it’s a standing balance that back-to-school and the holidays both add to. That calls for an actual payoff plan, not another round of “I’ll deal with it after this shopping season,” because there’s always another shopping season coming.

If you haven’t spent anything yet and you’re reading this before you do: this is the moment our June budgeting guide was written for. A sinking fund set now, even a partial one, is the difference between joining the 60% next year or not.

The Bottom Line

Sixty percent of parents didn’t get to back-to-school season this year with a clean slate, and a quarter of them are already four figures deep before the first purchase. That’s not a personal failing showing up in a survey — it’s most people, which means the tools built for this (debt payoff trackers, balance transfers, actually knowing what you owe across every app) matter more this year than a fresh budget for new spending does. Build the budget for what’s left. But triage the balance you’re already carrying first, starting with whatever’s charging you interest — because that’s the one still growing while you read this.

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Debt-carrying figures from Accredited Debt Relief’s survey, conducted by Centiment among 1,052 parents of K-12 students, May 22–28, 2026. Debt-intention figures from Qualtrics’ survey for Intuit Credit Karma, conducted among 1,032 parents with a child under 18, June 30–July 6, 2026. BNPL and credit card usage intentions from NerdWallet’s 2026 Back-to-School Shopping Report, conducted by The Harris Poll among 582 parents, June 2–4, 2026. Credit card APR ranges are general 2026 market figures — check your actual statement for your rate.