As tuition and fees begin to increase for CSU’s and UC’s alike, students are turning to various ways of paying for their education.

As every other outlet is exhausted in regard to financial aid with grants and scholarships from schools and the federal and state governments, it leaves only one option, and that is to take out a loan.

According to research done by the National Postsecondary Student Aid Study, 65.6 percent of four-year degree students graduated with some sort of student loan debt.

The average amount of debt for undergraduate degree students for the years 2007-08, was $23,186 for graduating seniors.

Among those students who applied for federal student aid of some sort, 86.3 percent took out a student loan that averaged an amount of $24,651 by the time they graduated.

This means that only 14 percent of students that apply for financial aid receive enough support financially from family or from grants that they are able to avoid this situation.

This is a problem, especially with the poor economy and 1,450 students that graduate from Fresno State not being able to find a good paying job, according to a previous article in The Collegian.

These statistics include Stafford, Perkins, state, college and private loans in the numbers.

It is a scary thought to think of paying the loan back and how long it will take. According to collegescholarships.org, the amount that a person will be paying back and the length of time depends upon the interest rate for the loan.

Interest rates based on a national average are 6.8 percent for Stafford loans, Perkins loans are fixed at 5 percent, and Parent and Grad PLUS loans are at 8.5 percent and 7.9 percent for the federal direct loan program. For private student loans, it is decided by the bank that the money was borrowed from and can change at any time.

If a student based on the national average, graduated with a debt of $23,186 and had an interest rate of 6.8 percent, the student will be paying an additional $1576.48 a year until the loan is paid off.

According to Maria Hernandez, the financial aid director for Fresno State, last year Fresno State had 2,100 students graduating with student loan debt that needed to complete an exit interview.

“Annually we have approximately 8,000-9,000 student borrowers, plus or minus,” she said. “Those students will all graduate or leave campus at some point and will therefore go into repayment.”

There is some hope with changes in the Higher Education Access Act of 2007 that will affect interest rates for loans. For example, Stafford student loan interest rates are being reduced to 3.4 percent gradually between 2007-2012.

But will this be enough? Juliet Williams of the Associated Press reported that CSU Trustees voted to increase tuition this winter and spring each semester by 5 percent and another 10 percent next fall semester.