Carl (who doesn’t want his last name used) stopped making his $450 monthly payments after his family incurred some unexpected medical expenses, and his $55,000 private loans went into default. That’s when the phone calls from debt collectors started, and Carl decided not to come back.

“It was made clear that if I ever came home, I’m screwed,” says Carl.

Today, he estimates his private loans are more than $70,000. Though he hopes to move home one day, for now, staying abroad is the only option he can see.

“If it means I have to live in exile from friends and family…well, that’s the breaks. So be it. But I won’t put my family in a situation where they are afraid,” he says.

While most Americans are burdened with debt of some kind, student loan repayment can be a particularly scary prospect for young people struggling to start a career. Payments are often higher than expected, and the loans can’t easily be discharged. Added pressure from debt collectors causes some grads to flee their loans by fleeing the country.

“These are people new to borrowing and they didn’t understand what they were getting into,” says Mark Kantrowitz of Finaid.org, an online student loan information Web site. “It’s a very sorry situation that it comes to students feeling they have no option than to leave the country,” he says. “It’s a sign the system is broken.”

To date, there is about $60 billion in defaulted student loan debt according to Chris Lang of the New York-based debt collection agency, ConServe. But while skipping town to avoid paying student loans isn’t very common – Lang estimates that only about 2% to 4% of delinquent student loan debt is owed from students abroad – for some, it seems like the only way out.

International addresses make it more difficult to find people, and collection companies would usually need to hire an international counsel or a third party collector to recoup the debt, cutting into their profits and reducing their incentive to go after a debtor.

“It increases our expenses to go overseas,” says Justin Berg of American Profit Recovery, a debt collection agency in Massachusetts. “Our revenues are cut by more than half,” he says.

Chris left the country to help pay his debt, not to avoid it. But when that didn’t work out, he saw his foreign address as the only way to escape.

Chris (who doesn’t want his last name used) graduated with about $160,000 in student loan debt with a master’s degree in music.

“At the time I thought I could handle it. I thought the most I’d be paying was $600 a month,” he says.

But his payments were $2,400 a month. So Chris started looking for jobs overseas. He thought he’d be able to earn more and pay off his loans. But it didn’t turn out that way. His salary was even less than what he was making back home. He realized there was no way he could make his payments, so he changed his address.

“They think I’m living somewhere in Arizona,” he says. His last payment was a year and a half ago.

“I am upset at myself. I could have gone to a cheaper school,” Chris says. “But I’m most angry at the fact that for anyone who has debt that’s not student loan debt, there’s relief. You can get into $150,000 worth of credit card debt and you can declare bankruptcy and you can go on with your life. But with student loans, you’re being punished for being a better person.”

While getting student loans discharged through bankruptcy is no easy task, that doesn’t mean it can’t be done.

“There’s a mythology that private student loans can’t be discharged. But sometimes they can and should,” says Kantrowitz.

To get your student loans discharged, you must file an undue hardship petition. To qualify, you have to satisfy three conditions: First, you must not be able to repay your student loan and also maintain a minimal standard of living based on your income and your expenses. Second, your situation must likely persist for a significant portion of the repayment period of the loan. Finally, you must have made good faith efforts to repay the loans.

In about half of cases of people who do file for this hardship petition, debt will be partially or totally discharged, says Kantrowitz.

If you’re having trouble paying your student loans there are steps you can take, according to Kantrowitz.

If your income isn’t sufficient to repay a federal loan, you can apply for an economic hardship deferment or forbearance which would suspend or reduce your monthly payments. To find out if you qualify for these programs, check out the hardship calculator at http://www.finaid.org/.

If your money problems are longer term – say your career path doesn’t pay well – there are some alternate payment plans that you can explore. An extended repayment plan could lower your payments. But it also increases the life of your loan so you’ll wind up paying more in the long run.

If you have federal loans through the Direct Loan program, you may qualify for an income contingent repayment plan. In this case your payments are based on your income and your debt load .

These steps must be taken before you default on your loan. If your loan is already in default, you won’t qualify for deferments or forbearances. If you can’t resolve an issue, contact the Federal Student Aid Ombudsman at http://www.ombudsman.ed.gov/ or call 1-877-557-2575.

If you have defaulted on a federal loan, you can rehabilitate yourself. It will require you to make nine to twelve full payments of some agreed-upon amounts within a certain time period to the Department of Education. For more information on this, contact the Department at 1-800-621-3115.

And there’s another way to get help if you’re buried under student loans. Talk to a non-profit counselor.

The counseling session should be free of charge. Make sure you ask if the agency works with student loans. And in addition to helping you with your student loan payments, these agencies can work with you to manage your spending and your budget. If you are put on a managed debt program, there is typically a small fee. To find a non-profit credit counselor in your area go to the National Foundation for Credit Counseling at www.nfcc.org.

Now, not only will government increasingly be making decisions about individuals’ health care, but students will also have to deal exclusively with the government to get the financing they need for college. The government will be in charge of the delivery of $1 trillion in federal student loans over the next 10 years. That means 19 million students will have no where to call but to 1-800-DEPT-OF-ED. — I’m sure the calls will be handled in the order in which they were received. Good luck with that. Competition and choice have been taken away in the student loan market.  Let’s face it, this experiment can only end badly.

It’s frustrating that a law this sweeping was swept under the Obamacare rug. The Senate never introduced a student loan reform bill. It never held a hearing. And proposed changes to the student loan program were never even considered by lawmakers at the committee level.

“Schoolhouse Rock’s” Bill is red faced with shame. What’s worse is that The Wall Street Journal editorial page and The Washington Times reported on Thursday about certain Democratic Congressmen giving certain non-profit companies in their states non-competitive carve outs…And these are companies that already didn’t pay taxes. And there was even a special “carve out” for Democratic Sen. Kent Conrad of North Dakota. But it was taken out at the last minute because it was just too unseemly. At least we know they have standards!

If the tables were turned, Democrats would be crying foul and demanding an ethics investigation. The American people — and its students — deserve to know what really happened.

Dana Perino is a Fox News contributor and former White House press secretary.

When Michelle Bisutti, a 41-year-old family practitioner in Columbus, Ohio, finished medical school in 2003, her student-loan debt amounted to roughly $250,000. Since then, it has ballooned to $555,000.

It is the result of her deferring loan payments while she completed her residency, default charges and relentlessly compounding interest rates. Among the charges: a single $53,870 fee for when her loan was turned over to a collection agency.

“Maybe half of it was my fault because I didn’t look at the fine print,” Dr. Bisutti says. “But this is just outrageous now.”

To be sure, Dr. Bisutti’s case is extreme, and lenders say student-loan terms are clear and that they try to work with borrowers who get in trouble.

But as tuitions rise, many people are borrowing heavily to pay their bills. Some no doubt view it as “good debt,” because an education can lead to a higher salary. But in practice, student loans are one of the most toxic debts, requiring extreme consumer caution and, as Dr. Bisutti learned, responsibility.

Unlike other kinds of debt, student loans can be particularly hard to wriggle out of. Homeowners who can’t make their mortgage payments can hand over the keys to their house to their lender. Credit-card and even gambling debts can be discharged in bankruptcy. But ditching a student loan is virtually impossible, especially once a collection agency gets involved. Although lenders may trim payments, getting fees or principals waived seldom happens.

Yet many former students are trying. There is an estimated $730 billion in outstanding federal and private student-loan debt, says Mark Kantrowitz of FinAid.org, a Web site that tracks financial-aid issues — and only 40% of that debt is actively being repaid. The rest is in default, or in deferment, which means that payments and interest are halted, or in “forbearance,” which means payments are halted while interest accrues.

Although Dr. Bisutti’s debt load is unusual, her experience having problems repaying isn’t. Emmanuel Tellez’s mother is a laid-off factory worker, and $120 from her $300 unemployment checks is garnished to pay the federal PLUS student loan she took out for her son.

By the time Mr. Tellez graduated in 2008, he had $50,000 of his own debt in loans issued by SLM Corp., known as Sallie Mae, the largest private student lender. In December, he was laid off from his $29,000-a-year job in Boston and defaulted. Mr. Tellez says that when he signed up, the loan wasn’t explained to him well, though he concedes he missed the fine print.

Loan terms, including interest rates, are disclosed “multiple times and in multiple ways,” says Martha Holler, a spokeswoman for Sallie Mae, who says the company can’t comment on individual accounts. Repayment tools and account information are accessible on Sallie Mae’s Web site as well, she says.

Many borrowers say they are experiencing difficulties working out repayment and modification terms on their loans. Ms. Holler says that Sallie Mae works with borrowers individually to revamp loans. Although the U.S. Department of Education has expanded programs like income-based repayment, which effectively caps repayments for some borrowers, others might not qualify.

Heather Ehmke of Oakland, Calif., renegotiated the terms of her subprime mortgage after her home was foreclosed. But even after filing for bankruptcy, she says she couldn’t get Sallie Mae, one of her lenders, to adjust the terms on her student loan. After 14 years with patches of deferment and forbearance, the loan has increased from $28,000 to more than $90,000. Her monthly payments jumped from $230 to $816. Last month, her petition for undue hardship on the loans was dismissed.

Sallie Mae supports reforms that would allow student loans to be dischargeable in bankruptcy for those who have made a good-faith effort to repay them, says Ms. Holler.

Dr. Bisutti says she loves her work, but regrets taking out so many student loans. She admits that she made mistakes in missing payments, deferring her loans and not being completely thorough with some of the paperwork, but was surprised at how quickly the debt spiraled.

She says she knew when she started medical school in 1999 that she would have to borrow heavily. But she reasoned that her future income as a doctor would make paying off the loans easy. While in school, her loans racked up interest with variable rates ranging from 3% to 11%.

She maxed out on federal loans, borrowing $152,000 over four years, and sought private loans from Sallie Mae to help make up the difference. She also took out two loans from Wells Fargo & Co. for $20,000 each. Each had a $2,000 origination fee. The total amount she borrowed at the time: $250,000.

In 2005, the bill for the Wells Fargo loans came due. Representatives from the bank called her father, Michael Bisutti, every day for two months demanding payment. Mr. Bisutti, who had co-signed on the loans, finally decided to cover the $550 monthly payments for a year.

Wells Fargo says it will stop calling consumers if they request it, says senior vice president Glen Herrick, who adds that the bank no longer imposes origination fees on its private loans.

Sallie Mae, meanwhile, called Mr. Bisutti’s neighbor. The neighbor told Mr. Bisutti about the call. “Now they know [my dad's] daughter the doctor defaulted on her loans,” Dr. Bisutti says.

Ms. Holler, the Sallie Mae spokeswoman, says that the company may contact a neighbor to verify an individual’s address. But in those cases, she says, the details of the debt obligation aren’t discussed.

Dr. Bisutti declined to authorize Sallie Mae to comment specifically on her case. “The overwhelming majority of medical-school graduates successfully repay their student loans,” Ms. Holler says.

After completing her fellowship in 2007, Dr. Bisutti juggled other debts, including her credit-card balance, and was having trouble making her $1,000-a-month student-loan payments. That year, she defaulted on both her federal and private loans. That is when the “collection cost” fee of $53,870 was added on to her private loan.

Meanwhile, the variable interest rates continue to compound on her balance and fees. She recently applied for income-based repayment, but she still isn’t sure if she will qualify. She makes $550-a-month payments to Wells Fargo for the two loans she hasn’t defaulted on. By the time she is done, she will have paid the bank $128,000 — over three times the $36,000 she received.

She recently entered a rehabilitation agreement on her defaulted federal loans, which now carry an additional $31,942 collection cost. She makes monthly payments on those loans — now $209,399 — for $990 a month, with only $100 of it going toward her original balance. The entire balance of her federal loans will be paid off in 351 months. Dr. Bisutti will be 70 years old.

The debt load keeps her up at night. Her damaged credit has prevented her from buying a home or a new car. She says she and her boyfriend of three years have put off marriage and having children because of the debt.

Dr. Bisutti told her 17-year-old niece the story of her debt as a cautionary tale “so the next generation of kids who want to get a higher education knows what they’re getting into,” she says. “I will likely have to deal with this debt for the rest of my life.”

The sad truth is that many college graduates find that for the first 10-15 years after they have graduated college, they are essentially indentured servants to their student loan debts. There are many reasons for this and different college graduates will find different things about their student loans when the appropriate time comes. First of all, those taking out student loans need to understand that a college degree does not guarantee a high starting salary. Beyond that, a college degree is no guarantee that there will be employers lining up to take your name and number upon graduation. The truth is that most college grads take anywhere from 6 months to a year to find a job in their fields and even then the starting salaries are often far less than anticipated.

Part of the blame for over-inflated expectations is the fault of universities attempting to validate their high tuition rates by displaying average starting salaries of only those that have successful offers in the field of study immediately upon graduation (which usually indicates a history of working with the company or another company as an intern prior to being hired) and not those students who have no prior work experience in their chosen fields. Part of the expectations is students reading job advertisements for experienced workers in a field and assuming that an education will provide the experience that employers require. Regardless of the reason, most starting salary expectations are not realistic in light of the current market.

The problem is that for many students a student loan is the difference in receiving a college education or not receiving one. For these students, there is no option. The price they will pay (with interest) for having student loans in order to get through the educational process will repay itself over the course of a lifetime if they are wise about making the necessary payments and stay on top of things such as consolidation loans and making payments on time.

Student loans are a great tool for those who have no other options when it comes to attending and affording to attend a university. On the other hand, for those who do not have an absolute need for the funds a student loan can provide they can prove to be problematic when trying to establish your career and your lifestyle upon graduation. This is a tool for education that should be used sparingly at best.

Whether or not you choose to take out student loans in order to fund your college education it is a good idea if you exhaust all other available resources first. Check out your options for grants, scholarships, and work-study programs before leaping into student loans to pay for your education.

The moment you hear the words credit card, you probably assume debt, debt and oodles more debt. This is not exactly the case for college students. Ah ha, there really are some advantages to being a student. While credit cards are notorious for having utterly awful APRs, which are annual percentage rates; many credit cards for college students lack this burden. Yes, you can actually apply for a student credit card that doesn’t instruct you to fork out 18 percent every month. It’s common for credit cards for college students to have a 0% APR as long as they keep the charged balance below a certain figure. So if you’re only aloud to spend 400 dollars or you get hit with an APR of 10-20 percent, you’d better keep the balance below 400 dollars.

Modern credit cards for college students are actually a great asset. You can literally spend money you don’t have and simply pay it back down the road, without having to grapple with interest rates. Enjoy this perk while it lasts, because it fails to exist in the adult world. Some sites you may benefit from checking out for student credit cards are creditcards.com, llegeboard.com and chase.com. Just be certain you read through all the fine print before applying for a specific credit card for college students. Sometimes credit card companies attempt to mask additional fees.

The problem lies in the fact that the parents of most traditional college students make too much money to qualify for the free financial aid that is needs based and very few qualify for the limited number of scholarships that are available to students based on merit. Even among those that qualify competition and fierce and there are no guarantees. Enter the student loan. There are all kinds of student loans and unfortunately with rising costs associated with college attendence and the growing necessity of a college degree for success in this country it is becoming more and more difficult to pay the price that is associated with higher education.

There are three types of loans that are commonly found for college students. They include federal student loans, federal plus loans, and private student loans. Each type of loan has advantages and disadvantages that are unique to that particular loan. Below I will give a little information about each of the loan types and whom they may benefit.

Student loans. There are three different types of student loans: subsidized, unsubsidized, and Perkins loans.

Perkins loans are only available to students who display exceptional financial need. These loans are available at a 5% interest rate and are available to both graduate and undergraduate students. Perkins loans are extended through the university you attend and will be repaid to the university unlike the other types of student loans, which are repaid to the lending agency.

Subsidized student loans are loans in which the interest is deferred until graduation or you cease to be a qualifying student.  What this means is that while you are responsible for repaying the loan upon graduation the interest on these loans does not begin to accrue until your begin repayment 6 months after graduation or your cease to be at least a half time student of the university. You must qualify based on your income in order to receive a subsidized student loan. While the needs requirements for these loans isn’t as grave as those required in order to receive a Perkins loan you must still qualify.

Unsubsidized student loans do not require qualification on a needs basis. You must be a student and enrolled at least half time in order to receive an unsubsidized student loan. The good news however for those who do not qualify based on needs for other student loan options is that this type of loan is available to all qualifying students regardless of need. The interest on these loans however begins to accrue immediately, which means they can really add up over time.

PLUS loans are loans that are taken out by the parents of students who need the funds in order to cover educational expenses. The maximum amount that can be borrowed is the cost of attendence minus any financial aid awards the student has already received. The repayment on these loans begins 60 days after the loan is dispersed and the repayment period can be up to 10 years.

In order to cover the costs involved in education that go above and beyond what the government recognizes as acceptable college related expenses you can opt to go the route of private student loans rather then relying solely upon federal financial aid for your student loan source. These loans require that you qualify in order to receive them based on your credit rather than your need and must be used for educational purposes only. With these particular loans you really need to make sure you read all the fine print as different companies offer different conditions and different perks. You should really take the time and compare prices and options before taking out a private student loan and this should be done only as a last resort.

Student loans for many can be the difference in attending college and getting the education you are hoping for and not being able to pay the high costs that go along with higher education. For this reason you should treat them with respect and not take them lightly.

When it comes to paying off student loans, many individuals wonder why they should get started with doing so right away.  Whether you just graduated one month ago or three years ago, there is a good chance that you have already received a bill requesting you to make a payment on your loan.  For many college lenders, this is common practice.  It seems as if you are expected to repay your college loan as soon as you graduate.  Unfortunately, many women, possibly just like you, are financially unable to do so.

While a large college loan bill may seem like an issue that canít be solved at the moment, it is important that you do not just push it aside.  It is important to remember that loans, including college loans, have an impact on your credit.  Even if you are unable to make your full college loan payments as expected, you are advised to at least put a little bit towards your loan repayment each month.  In fact, even if you have yet to receive a bill requesting payment, it may be a good idea to start making payments anyways.  You can easily do this by contacting your loan lender for additional information.

One of the many reasons why so many recent college graduates have a difficult time making their college loan payments is because their life changes.  Many female college graduates need to not only find a job, but get their own apartment, condo, or home.  This is an expense that is costly all on its own, not to mention the added costs of furnishings, food, and utilities.  If this is a change that you recently had to make, you may want to sit down and make a budget for yourself.  The starting point of your budget should include all of the bills that you need to pay, like your rent or mortgage, auto insurance, food, utility bills, and gasoline to and from work.  These are expenses that you simply cannot avoid paying.

Once you have an idea of how much money you must spend each month, you can then calculate your monthly income by adding your weekly paychecks. What you will then want to do is determine the difference.  If you have any additional money left over, it is advised that you put as much of that money as possible towards the repayment of your college loan. Despite what you may believe, you donít necessarily have to pay your monthly loan payment all at once. There are many financial lenders that will accept twenty dollars from you one week and fifty dollars from you another.  Often times, you will find that lenders just want their money, no matter how it arrives to them.

Although it is advised that you start making payments on your college loan as soon as possible, that time may have already come and gone.  If you have been out of college for at least five years, it may be time to consider alternative approaches.  If your loan lender is requesting payment in full, a payment that you cannot make, it may be an idea to consider applying for a debt consolidation loan. Although the last thing that you want to do is get another loan, your loan payments will be smaller to pay and this should be much easier for you.

If you are a female who has college debt that you need to repay, it is advised that you work towards doing so at every step in your life.  You should always think about the impact of dining out, when you have a debt to repay.  By letting your college loans go unpaid, they can reach the point where they are an issue that you can no longer run from.