Texas grad suing college because she can't find employment

"As the costs to students and their families go up, more are viewing college as another major purchase in their life. Some people think very seriously about whether or not they are getting value for what they are paying in."

According to the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education, the average cost of tuition and fees has risen by 440 percent over the past 25 years, a rate that is more than four times the pace of inflation and almost twice the rate of medical care, said Weinberg Law Firm, Texas Employment Lawyer.

According to UW-Madison's "Data Digest," it cost the average in-state undergraduate $6,974 to attend Wisconsin's flagship university during the 1989-90 school year; this covered such costs as tuition and fees, books and supplies, room and board. A decade later, that figure jumped to $11,538 for 1999-00. And for 2008-09, it cost the average in-state undergrad $19,028 to attend UW-Madison.

Add it up, and it's no surprise that more and more students are leaving school with significant amounts of debt. The Data Digest shows that 43.6 percent of those who earned undergraduate degrees from UW-Madison in 1989-90 left school with debt, and of those the average amount of debt was $7,754. The most recent figures, for those graduating from UW-Madison in 2007-08, show 48.9 percent left school in debt, with those students owing an average of $20,747.