"I honestly want to get down to business and kill off my debt ($40,000), but doing it over 10-20 years does not seem reasonable to me."

"My boyfriend and I plan to get married in the summer of 2005. By that point, he will have accumulated $60,000 in student debt."

"I don't know how I will survive on EI while trying to make my monthly $835 private/public student loan payments."

Messages from a student chat forum

Perhaps no segment of Canadian society has a bigger debt profile than the country's college and university students. And the evidence shows that for many, the problem lingers long after graduation.

How big is the problem?

General Rules for Collection Agencies:

• Contact may be made only between 7 a.m. and 9 p.m. (rules vary by province)
• There should be no contact with other family members unless they have guaranteed the debt or if they are simply confirming the residence of the debtor.
• Collection agents are not permitted to harass or verbally abuse debtors.
• Collection agents cannot refuse any payment offer.

Statistics Canada's National Graduates Survey released in the spring of 2004 found that 45 per cent of bachelor's degree grads left school owing money to government student loan programs. They owed an average of $19,500.

• RELATED: Undergrads paying 3.9% more this fall – from CBC News Online, Sept. 2, 2004

For those who also owed money to non-government sources (like credit card issuers), the average owed ballooned to $32,200.

The survey showed about one in seven owed more than $25,000. And almost a quarter (24 per cent) reported having difficulty repaying their loans.

And while many grads reported no debt on graduation, they were still in the minority. Anecdotally, some grads report truly crushing debt loads of $40,000, $60,000, even $100,000.

Tuition fees get much (but not all) of the blame

You don't have to look too far to find out why post-secondary education costs (and student debt) have been rising so fast.

Tuition fees have almost tripled in the last 14 years, far outstripping the rise in the cost of living. The average undergrad in Canada now pays $4,172 a year. Students in professional faculties like law, medicine and dentistry pay far more (fees in dentistry, for example, average $12,331).

Add in other living costs like residence, food, books and other expenses, and it can easily cost $18,000 a year to attend university.

Average undergraduate tuition fees, 2004/2005 (Source: Statistics Canada)

Subtract the $4,500 a student might make at a summer job, and the maximum $9,300 available from government loans programs, and the problem becomes clear. Many students say they have no choice but to borrow beyond their government loans to make up the shortfall.

The debt problem has been building for more than a decade, and not just because of rising tuition costs. For one thing, governments have been scaling back student grants (which don't need to be paid back) and increasing loans (which do).

One study by the Canadian Millennium Scholarship Foundation found that most parents overestimated the availability of student aid. More than 90 per cent of parents believed their kids would qualify for government loans. In fact, only half did.

Analysts also say students aren't nearly as debt-averse as their parents were. "In contrast to the postwar generation, which was wary of debt, today's young adults treat credit cards as a shortcut to the lifestyle they aspire to enjoy," said Bill Courage, chair of the Canadian Association of Insolvency and Restructuring Professionals.

"This generation of consumers has embraced and used debt in a way that no generation has before," he said.

For many, that embrace comes with a cost that's just too high.

The implications of big student debt

Quick Fact:

Payments on a $25,000 loan at 6.5 per cent interest: $284 a month for 10 years

Source: National Student Loans Service Centre

Being saddled with a large debt on graduation often means that other purchases must wait. A car, that first home, RRSP contributions – they all tend to be put off while student debt is tackled first.

So that means many years of steady monthly obligations that do nothing to improve grads' standard of living.

Some have reportedly left the country to escape their repayment obligations.

For those who default on their student loans, it means ruined credit ratings and constant attention from collection agencies – scrutiny that some say often amounts to harassment.

CBC Television's The National reported that some grads facing the largest debts (like young doctors) now choose to stay in big cities rather than return to their hometowns, because their rural paycheques wouldn't be enough to pay off their loans and still provide a good standard of living.

What's a student debtor to do?

Quick Fact:

Number of Canada Student Loans overdue: 173,000

Source: Canada Student Loans Program

The sections in this series on Dealing with debt and When debt trouble looms include some general tips on how to manage serious debt problems. Credit counselling, for instance, can be of enormous assistance.

But there are special relief measures that can help those with student debt. Interest paid on government student loans, for instance, qualifies for a 17-per-cent federal tax credit. That amounts to tax savings equal to about 25 per cent of the total interest cost.

For those having serious problems repaying their debt, or who just don't earn enough (student loan repayments are based on the amount owed, not on one's income after graduation), the government has programs to either forgive some of the interest or forgive some of the debt. But student activists complain that interest rate relief is available only to grads with very modest incomes.

Filing for bankruptcy, which used to be a popular escape route for heavily-indebted students, was rendered much less popular in 1997 when Ottawa changed the rules. Now, students who file for bankruptcy will not have their government loan debt discharged unless they've been out of school for 10 years.

Many surveys show the lifelong benefit of higher education. Graduates tend to find work faster, get better jobs, and make more money than non-grads.

But that benefit comes at a price that some are unable to pay.

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