An eternity ago, back when I was just thinking about what college to attend, I was given a piece of advice by my guidance counselors.

Decide what school you want to attend first and foremost, think about how you're going to get into that school, and then and only then, worry about how you're going to pay for it. That part will work itself out

It sounded like good advice to me at the time. After all, they told me, student loans are the solution. They have low interest rates, and with the small payments you'll have to make on them each month, you'll hardly even notice they're there.

Perfect.

Okay, what I want to tell you is the truth...

I chose to attend a private school -- a fairly expensive private school. Now, I was a very good student, so I came away with a fair amount in scholarship money. I also did the whole work-study thing. What my scholarships didn't cover, my student loans did. Above and beyond that, my very generous grandparents helped me out.

With all that, I still came away from my four years of college with nearly twenty thousand dollars in student loans.

I had two sets of loans. One set was through New York State, and one set was a federally guaranteed student loan. That meant two separate sets of payments.

As for those miniscule payments, well the smaller loan I only had to make a payment on once every three months. It wasn't much either. $150.00 every three months fits into most budgets reasonably. The second, much larger loan was the real difficulty. I had a payment of over $150.00 ever month. Now that's not such a small payment.

And when I saw that my payments would run until the year 2002, I nearly fell over. Mind you, that was back in 1991. Of course, that's if you're able to make the monthly payment. It's well beyond 2002 now, and my loans still have a long way to go.

In today's world, a college