When Mark Hedgepeth finishes his undergraduate degree in architecture, he will have amassed more than $100,000 in debt.
Part of it is student loans, along with money borrowed for living expenses while attending school. Hedgepeth, 29, is married and has an infant daughter.Hedgepeth enrolled at the University of Utah in 1985 to study art and graphic design. Once he discovered he could not support a family on an artist's salary, he changed his major to architecture.
To become a full-fledged architect, he must attend graduate school.
"Even if I wanted to, I can't. There's no way we can support the debt load and go further into debt." The young family's monthly debt load is double what most families pay in mortgage. Hedgepeth works part time but acknowledges he can only make a dent in the debt.
Hedgepeth said he wishes he had been counseled about his prospective earning potential in numerous careers before he started college. That way he wouldn't have had a false start, which contributed to his teeming debt.
On Wednesday, Sept. 24, students at 100 high schools statewide will be offered advice on how to pay for college without accumulating unnecessary student-loan debt. The presentations, which will begin at 7 p.m., are geared for high school juniors and seniors.
Students and their parents will receive a workbook and watch a brief video titled "Creating a Financial Path to Graduation."
The video will be rebroadcast several times in the next week on KUED (Channel 7), KULC (Channel 9) and KBYU (Channel 11).
Students or their parents also can call financial advisers between 8 p.m. and 11 p.m. on Monday, Sept. 29, at 1-800-377-4741.
The goal of the presentations and personal counseling is to teach students to make an academic plan, estimate costs and resources and establish a personal debt limit.
"We're seeing some students who are really getting into significant student-loan debt," said Norm Finlinson, director of financial aid at Brigham Young University. "Our concern is students who are taking out loans unwisely and un-nec-essarily."
The average BYU student leaves school with $11,000 in outstanding loans, and some students' indebtedness is significantly higher. Finlinson worries what will happen to some students after graduation and how long it will take them to pay off their loans.
"It's not about being against loans because they are a great resource," Finlinson said. "Our message is: You really need to develop a personal strategy for financing your education."
More and more students are relying on loans to pay for their college education. In 1997, the Utah student loan program processed 53,000 loans for about $190 million. Ten years ago, the program processed 20,000 loans for $60 million.
Utahns are among the least likely to default on student loans. Even so, college financial aid officers are deeply concerned about the debt students are incurring while in school.
"We're concerned about students getting in over their heads, particularly when they will also have families, house payments, automobile payments on top of student loan payments," said David Feitz, assistant commissioner for the Utah System of Higher Education.
Feitz said he hopes that students and parents who attend the financial aid presentations walk away with the message that financial planning should begin long before a student starts college. "Thirty nine percent of families start planning while their kids are in high school. Thirty three percent start when they apply for college . . . That doesn't give you the lead time most families need," Feitz said.