Thirty-three percent of students graduating with their bachelor's degrees will leave UA with not only a diploma, but with debt, according to the Office of Student Financial Aid.

However, those students who have yet to pay off loans owe, on average, about $17,500 and can expect to pay off those loans for 10 years, according to John Nametz, director of need-based aid.

The nationwide loan amount average for all bachelor's degree recipients in 1999-2000 was more than $18,000, and for public universities it was almost $17,000, according to the National Post secondary Student Aid Survey. That same school year, UA's more than 2,200 graduates averaged $17,620 in owed loans.

Loans account for more than $35 billion borrowed nationwide and $1 billion borrowed in Arizona through the nation's two largest federal loan programs, the Federal Education Loan Program and the Federal Direct Loan Program, according to the U.S. Department of Education.

The amount of time allowed for paying off a loan is based on whether or not loans are consolidated, Nametz said.

"Many students consolidate loans and end up with longer payment periods and drastically increased loan costs, despite locking in low interest rates. We advise our students to very carefully consider the negative issues of consolidations, especially if they have loans with discounted interest rates to begin with," he said.

A student's available amount of loans as an undergraduate under 24 is based on the cost of attendance minus the expected family contribution. The difference in those numbers is available to the student.

Students who are unable to get needed student loans during undergraduate years should not lose all hope for graduate school, however. Graduate students are considered independent from their parents regardless of age; need-based aid is no longer dependent on their parents' income.

There are not many statistics on graduate school loans. Kent Wolfe, a research analyst at the National Student Loan Program, said this might be because graduate school is not as necessary, and therefore, it is not as well-documented in the loan programs.

"Graduate school is considered icing on the cake," he said.

Students who do get loans for their bachelor's education and need loans again for graduate school have to be careful not to default, because it makes them ineligible for another loan in many cases, Wolfe said.

Another benefit of paying back loans in a timely matter is that many lenders offer percentage discounts to responsible borrowers, he said.

Jackie Boorse, a pre-physiological sciences freshman, already owes $1,500 in loans and expects to owe a substantial amount more by the time she graduates.

"I am not really worried about paying them off and I don't regret taking them; they have helped out a lot," she said.