Over the next several years, the four Murphy siblings of Colorado are together likely to find themselves more than $500,000 in debt.

Shannon Murphy, an undergraduate at Indiana's University of Notre Dame, is now considering medical schools. Her brother Chris is entering his first year at California's Claremont-McKenna College. Each expects to accumulate more than $130,000 (€100,000, £70,000) in debt to finance their undergraduate degrees, and Shannon will accrue tens of thousands more for medical school.