The nation’s college students set another record for debt in 2015, according to the latest annual report of The Institute for College Access and Success (TICAS). Fully 68% of graduating seniors had student loans, and their average debt load rose 4% over the previous year’s record to $30,100. 
 
 That means the majority of new college graduates are facing monthly student loan payments in excess of $300 a month over the next 10 years. 
 
 Especially worrisome: 19% of those loans were private debts, which are loans issued by private companies such as banks, instead of the standard student loans issued by the federal government. The federal student loan program charges undergraduates low interest rates. This year’s undergraduates will pay just 3.76% in interest and 1.07% in one-time fees, for a total annual percentage rate of about 4%. Federal student loans also offer flexible repayment options, such as income-based repayment, and the possibility of forgiveness of at least part of the debt. Private companies tend to charge higher rates, and generally don’t offer repayment flexibility or forgiveness. TICAS noted that some private lenders are current charging rates of more than 13%. 
 
 “Compared to federal loans, private loans—whether from banks, states, or schools—can be much harder to repay, especially if the borrower hits hard times,” says Debbie Cochrane, a co-author of TICAS’s loan report. 
 
 Cochrane said the high level of private debt is distressing because many of those risky debts are avoidable. Nearly half of students who take out private loans haven’t tapped all of the federal student loans they are eligible for, she noted. The U.S. Department of Education will lend almost any undergraduate anywhere from $5,500 to $12,500 a year, depending on their age and year in school. (Among those not eligible: non-citizens without green cards, or those who have previously defaulted on federal student loans.) 
 
 The state where TICAS found that graduates have the highest average debt loads—New Hampshire—also happens to have the public universities with the highest tuition and the lowest subsidy from taxpayers. Fully 76% of students who graduate from colleges in New Hampshire have student loans. And their average debt totals more than $36,000. The University of New Hampshire charges the highest in-state tuition of any public flagship in the country—more than $16,000. And the College Board reports that New Hampshire taxpayers provide the smallest level of support for higher education of any state in the country—just $1.75 per $1,000 in personal income, compared to a national average of $5.55. 
 
 Utah students, on the other hand, tend to graduate with the least amount of debt, according to TICAS. Nearly 60% of new graduates of colleges in Utah graduate debt-free. And those who do have debts owe an average of less than $19,000. On average, public colleges in Utah charge in-state tuition of about $7,000 a year, the fourth-lowest average tuition in the country. The state’s taxpayers contribute an above-average $8.02 per $1,000 in personal income to the state’s higher education system, the College Board estimates. ||||| Samantha Lee / Business Insider 
 
 Certified financial planner Sophia Bera answers: 
 
 I'm hoping you can provide me with some advice. I'm a pediatric neuropsychologist who has been licensed for two years. I'm essentially fresh out of graduate school, and I am one of the unfortunate graduates who has amassed an exorbitant amount of student loan debt by attending a for-profit university. 
 
 When I applied for graduate school at 21, I had no idea that there was a difference between for-profit and nonprofit schools, or that attending a for-profit school would financially affect the rest of my life. The full amount that I would end up owing was not accurately described by my graduate university's financial department when I interviewed, and I feel I was misled into believing that paying off my graduate student debt would be much easier than it in fact is. However, I also recognize that it is now my responsibility — but I'm stuck. 
 
 I have $262,000 in graduate loans and my husband has $40,000. Luckily, we've paid off undergrad. My interest rate is 6.75%. I'm not sure what my husband's is, but I believe it is similar. Our combined annual income after taxes last year was about $105,000. 
 
 What steps should we take to pay down this debt? 
 
 Student loan debt has crossed over $1.3 trillion in the United States, and that number is growing every day. According to the Institute for College Access & Success, "7 in 10 students in the class of 2014 graduated with student loans." You are not alone. But you are in a tough spot. One of the reasons I'm so passionate about financial education is because of situations like yours. Often times, students don't know the gravity of their situation until they graduate and see their student loan payments for the first time. 
 
 Assess your situation 
 
 The first thing to do is to assess your current student loan situation. Write down all your student loan balances, monthly payments, and interest rates for you and your husband's loans. If you have public student loans, then you may qualify for one of the income-driven repayment options, which could be a good option especially if your student loan balances are more than your annual income. Then use the repayment estimator to see how much you'd pay under the different repayment programs. These programs involve loan forgiveness after 20 or 25 years on public student loan debt. Remember, these repayment options do not apply to private loans. 
 
 However, there's one way to get your public student loans forgiven after 10 years (120 on time payments), and that's through Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF). If you work in the public sector or for a nonprofit, you should use an income-driven plan in conjunction with PSLF. (Quick note: You cannot use this program in combination with the extended repayment plan, so make sure that you're not on that payment plan if you're trying to use PSLF). 
 
 Attack your debts separately 
 
 I would analyze you and your husband's student loan situation separately. Since you have significantly more student loans than your husband, I think you'd really benefit from one of the income-driven plans. Lowering your monthly debt obligation on your loans would free up cash flow to aggressively pay off your husband's student loans. Seeing progress in one area of your finances can often help motivate you to work on other areas as well. 
 
 People who are married with significant student loan debt should work with a CPA to determine whether they should file jointly or separately for their taxes. There are many tax benefits that you'll qualify for when you file jointly but your student loan payments are based on your income for income-driven plans, so you could save a significant amount on your monthly student loan payments by filing your taxes separately. 
 
 Another thing to consider is how long do you want these student loan payments hanging around? Being in debt makes a lot of people sick to their stomach, and the idea of waiting two decades for their student loans to be forgiven sounds exhausting. If you have the means and motivation to pay off your student loans quickly, do it! Start by attacking the loans with the highest interest rates first and you'll save the most in interest. 
 
 Consider refinancing 
 
 A final option to consider is refinancing your student loan debt. If you have any private student loans at undesirable interest rates (I use 5% or higher as a rule of thumb), I would look into refinancing them to a lower interest rate and preferably a shorter time horizon. With public (federal) student loans you need to be more cautious about refinancing because you lose the federal loan benefits, such as the deferment, forbearance, and using an income-driven repayment option. 
 
 One thing I like to point out is you don't have to refinance all of your student loans together, I usually recommend that you only refinance the student loans with the highest interest rates. There are many loan refinance options out there so do your research, but I think that SoFi is a good place to start. I've found them to be particularly helpful at working with my clients to refinance six figures in student loan debt from grad school, law school, or med school. 
 
 You have a complicated situation, and I really think you could benefit from working with a financial planner to sort out the details of your situation. You're likely going to want to utilize a variety of these tactics mentioned above. Addressing your student loan situation might involve the following: 
 
 Switching to an income-driven repayment plan for your student loans 
 
 Refinancing any private student loans for you or your husband 
 
 Working with a CPA to analyze your tax situation and possibly start filing your taxes separately ||||| Student loan borrowers still aren’t catching a break. 
 
 The average student loan debt for a bachelor’s degree recipient in 2015 was $30,100, a 4% uptick from a year earlier, according to a report released Tuesday by The Institute for College Access and Success, a nonprofit focused on increasing access to higher education. 
 
 The report only looks at graduates from nonprofit private and public colleges, and therefore likely underestimates the level of debt because it doesn’t include borrowers from attended for-profit colleges, who tend to have higher debt loads. The findings indicate that despite policy makers’ increased attention to college costs and student debt over the past few years, the issue doesn’t seem to be abating, even for those borrowers arguably set up to succeed because they made it through college. Nearly 70% of the 2015 graduates from nonprofit private and public colleges had student debt, the report notes. 
 
 State disinvestment in higher education over the last several years largely explains why college costs continue to rise and student debt continues to grow, said Debbie Cochrane, the vice president of TICAS. “States need to increase their per-student level of support for public colleges, she said. “States are unlikely to do that or do that sufficiently on their own.” 
 
 Policy makers have been increasingly looking at ways the federal government can encourage states to support their public colleges. Both President Barack Obama and Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton have proposed plans that would use federal government incentives to help states make some time in public college free for residents. 
 
 But in the mean time, students and families are still coping with rising costs and the report points to other troubling factors that indicate students and families may not have enough or the right information to ensure they’re taking on manageable debts. 
 
 Nearly one-fifth of the debt held by 2015 graduates came from a source other than the federal student loan program. These loans typically have higher interest rates and don’t come with the same protections offered by the federal government, which is why experts suggest borrowers exhaust their federal loan eligibility before turning to other sources. But nearly half of undergraduates with private debt during the 2011 to 2012 school year didn’t use the maximum amount of federal loans for which they were eligible, the report noted. 
 
 While many assume that all nonfederal debt comes from private banks and lenders, state governments are also in the business of originating student loans. The terms of these loans often look more similar to those that come from private lenders than those offered by the federal government, and they’re particularly concentrated in certain areas of the country. Two-thirds of the graduates of the class of 2015 with state-sponsored student loan debt went to college in just three states: Texas, New Jersey and Minnesota. 
 
 “States have taken different approaches to the issues of college affordability and college financing,” said Cochrane. “Where some states have chosen to increase grant aid, others at some point believed that creating a state loan program will better position the students to pay for college.” 
 
 This can be problematic because in some cases, state-sponsored student loans can have onerous terms. For example, the state authority in New Jersey that runs the student loan program holds family members liable for a student debt even once the borrower dies, ProPublica and the New York Times reported earlier this year. 
 
 “The terms of private loans vary widely,” Cochrane said. “That’s true across the bank held loans, state loans or school loans. It really gets to the importance of consumer disclosures.” ||||| College students who graduated with student loan debt in 2015 left with an average of $30,100 in debt -- an increase of 4 percent over the 2014 average, according to an annual report released Tuesday by the Institute for College Access and Success. (Note: This item was corrected from an earlier version to note that the average debt is for graduates who borrowed.) 
 
 About one-fifth of that loan debt came from nonfederal loans, which provide fewer consumer protections. Nearly a third of graduating seniors left college with no student loan debt. 
 
 The report is the 11th annual analysis by TICAS of students' debt upon graduation. 
 
 "Student debt is still rising, and the typical college graduate now leaves school with over $30,000 in loans," said TICAS President Lauren Asher in a statement. "We need to make college more affordable and debt less burdensome for students and families." 
 
 TICAS found that high debt persists in Northeast and Midwestern states, while states in the West had the lowest levels of average student loan debt. Two-thirds of graduates with state student loan debt attended college in Minnesota, New Jersey and Texas.
– How much students are borrowing for higher education is still creeping up—and the numbers that are coming in are probably conservative. The Institute for College Access and Success, a nonprofit, reported Tuesday that the average student loan debt for 2015 for those receiving a bachelor's degree was $30,100, a 4% increase over the previous year, per MarketWatch. But that's only examining debt from students who graduated from public or nonprofit private colleges or universities (the amount of money private-school attendees need to borrow is often more substantial). And because about 68% of graduates from these schools have taken on loans, Money.com notes that most students coming out of there will be burdened with monthly payments of $300 or more over the next decade. So why has this uptick not started to trend downward yet? TICAS VP Debbie Cochrane says lack of investment from individual states can claim much of the blame. "States need to increase their per-student level of support for public colleges," she says, per MarketWatch. The states riddled with the highest debt tend to fall in the Northeast and Midwest, while states in the West experience the lowest levels, notes Inside Higher Ed. A financial expert offers tips via Business Insider on how to deal with such debt if you're mired in it. (A mom was told she had to pay off her murdered son's student loans.)