If you'd wondered why for the past three days I've been pretty much impossible to get hold of, and you haven't discovered it for yourself already, I am making an effort to clear my student debt and the method I have chosen is by donations. Announcing:

www.ClearMyStudentDebt.com

Some people maybe sceptical of what can be achieved, but my plea is real enough. I do really owe the Student Loans Company �12,338.34 and I do really intend to put any money donated into a fund that will be solely used to pay off the loan.

The reasons I have chosen this method of gathering payment is twofold. Firstly, I want to pay off my loan. I've promised the money is only to get me back onto a level par where I can then start thinking about things like saving up for a car or a deposit on a flat. If by some miracle I collect the full amount required to pay off the loan, I will donate any further money generated to an educational charity as the site will have served it's purpose by then.

The second reason is to air my personal frustration with the idea that being in debt is acceptable. I think most newspaper readers let the figures wash over them now, and like the subject of Northern Ireland, people have (unfortunately) lost interest. Their doesn't seem to be any organised student lobbying against it so it remains off topic and out of debate. My hope is that this might bring it back into peoples' minds, and remind them that if you want to go to uni when your parents can't pay the whack, you're going to be faced with paying back big bucks when you get out.

Student loans have been set up in a way that is meant to be manageable, but are so incomprehensibly big to a twenty-year-old, that it becomes numbing to them. Initial concerns about budgeting go out of the window after freshers' week when you realise the money 'apparently' is on-tap, and there are very few people I know who haven't had to worry about maxxing out on their overdraft(s).

We're all being brought up to accept the idea of living in constant debt is fine. Debt isn't a bad thing in itself , and does make parts of the world go around, but when you actively encourage every young person to borrow beyond their means you do have to wonder what will eventually give. Five years down the line are all today's youth going to be defaulting on their 100% mortgages? Are bankruptcy figures going to rise again after this, a record breaking year? I can't help thinking damage is being done right now when young people are being prepped to believe borrowing to your limit is risk-free, especially when other financial products aren't covered by the same lenient rates you get while you study.

Hopefully this project will get people talking about how wrong it is to be supplying children with really huge debts before they get their first real job, and with any luck it will re-enter the public discussion.

If you would like to help, you can do so by doing one of three things.

• Making a donation, no matter how small or large
• Putting a link or banner to ClearMyStudentDebt.com on your own site (click here for instructions)
• or spread the word otherwise, whether you mention it to a friend or email it to a colleague

Thanks, Andy :)

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