<prompt> Human: Hi rPF,Ive just discovered this subreddit, and Im encouraged by the high quality of advice Im seeing here. I was hoping to get some advice on what might seem obvious to you here.As my title states, I am 27 year old graduate student and long story short, I had a few crises to deal with so far family and girlfriend-related that have essentially left me with two credit cards, both nearly maxed 8500 on a Chase Amazon card, 3000 on an intro AmEx card. I never considered myself particularly bad with money but new I could be planning better and didnt keep track of things when shit was going down. The Amazon card is my longest line of credit, and until now Ive had a credit score 740 or so. A combination of high credit use and the closing of a Chase Slate card I had and never used simply to have higher credit caused my score to drop to 640 apparently, very quickly. Even though Ill be graduating soon and hopefully making bank, I know this is a pretty bad situation. My minimum on the Chase card is 220 a month, and 165 of that is interest. My minimum on the AmEx is something like 100. When I realized this, I re-applied for the Slate card, only to be denied ironically due to high credit card usage for my income.My question is - is there an obvious strategy here to help this short and long term besides making small dents in debt via minimum payments until I can earn more? How would a student making 2100 where 1000month is rent consider consolidating something like this? Thank you very much.  <response>: Make a budget that prioritizes debt payments, then track your spending and cut any unnecessary spending so that you can devote as much as possible to paying off this debt. Personallyprofessionally your goal should be to graduate quickly, cheaply and with a good-paying job lined up. Your rent is very high compared to your income - if taking on a roommate or moving to a less expensive place is an option in your current lease, you need to pursue that. If not, you should be doing one or both as soon as your current lease expires. 