Students racking up debt in UK

    British students are borrowing record amounts to pay for their studies , new goverment figures revealed last week .
    The total amount loaned to university students rose by 32.2 percent last year to nearly 4 billion .
    Most of the money loaned to students in higher education during 2007-08 was used to cover living expenses , a total of 2835.5 million , up 10.4 percent on 2006-07 .
    The amount borrowed to cover tuition fees rose 176.7 percent on 2006-07 , totaling 1,069.5 million in 2007-08 .
    The Student Loans Company was owed 21944.3 million at the end of the 2007-08 financial year by 2.7 million borrowers . Of these , 1.7 million had started repaying their loans .
    Stephen Williams , the Liberal Democrat higher education spokesman , said :" In addition to their loans , students are also racking up thousands of pounds of commercial debt  through credit cards and bank overdrafts .

                                         2008-07-11