Waiting tables and working summers for a surveying firm gave David Hilmer a nest egg to help pay for college at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. But although the money he saved was a good start, it was far from what we needed.

"After about a year and a half, I was scrambling--how was I going to cover my dorm expenses and tuition?" he recalls. Now working as the director of business development at Little Tornadoes, an Internet consulting firm in New York City, Hilmer says that without numerous student loans (a federal Perkins, Stafford, and a university loan) he might not have been able to graduate.

More than ever, students are now relying on loans to help pay for college. Two-thirds of undergraduate students are in debt when they graduate from college, according to the National Postsecondary Student Aid Study conducted by the National Center for Education Statistics and the U.S. Department of Education.