Graduates now finish their courses with debts averaging £14,000, made up of student loans, overdrafts, credit cards and loans from parents.

The figure has been going up by around 12% a year and is likely to rise even faster following the near tripling of tuition fees to £3,000 a year in September 2006.

Advanced studies on financial management would appear to be called for!

The National Union of Students (NUS) estimates that it now costs as much as £15,000 a year to study in London and £13,000 elsewhere, although the figures are disputed.

Gemma Tumelty, NUS president, said "Debt does not only affect students' choices before they enter university, it affects the courses they choose, the career they take on, the likelihood of them pursuing further study and their chances to save and invest as graduates."

So, you're leaving Uni with your degree certificate in one hand and a frightening bank statement in the other. What do you do?

Budget

To get your finances on the right track the first thing you need is a budget.

List everything you owe and all your living costs. If you are working, you need to deduct all outgoings for each month from your total income so you can work exactly how out how spare cash you have left for repaying debts.

Pay off expensive debt first

The top rules for paying back debt are:

• Switch expensive debt to something cheaper, for example switch to a 0% credit card or a cheaper loan.



• Pay off the most expensive loan at the fastest rate.

If you're struggling to pay back debt on credit cards, you'd probably be better off with a personal loan, which may have half the interest rate.

Don't rush to repay money to the Student Loans Company; the interest rate is linked to the retail price index - it's currently 2.4% - and you don't have to start repaying it until you earn more than £15,000 a year.