“I’m a college student. I don’t really have assets,” Austin Wilson, a twenty-one-year-old senior at the University of Kansas who was short on rent by a few hundred bucks this month, recently told CNBC. “I own my car, I have a bunch of Dungeons & Dragons books. I could try to sell those.”

Wilson filled out forty job applications, looking for a last-minute gig to supplement his work at a senior care center, but nothing came through in time. His bank wouldn’t loan him anything less than $3,000 with corresponding interest, which he was hesitant to add to his already substantial student loan debt.

Thus Wilson joined the nearly 40 percent of college-age Americans who, according to a poll conducted by CNBC, seriously consider taking out a payday loan — a small-sum, quick-turnaround, high-interest loan that can help in a pinch but can also easily lead the borrower down a spiral of debt.