Alicia Ingram is only 22 years old, but she's already $27,000 in debt.

When she graduates from Georgia State University this fall, her entry into adult life will begin with a slow crawl from student loans to solvency.

"I feel like that kind of hinders everything ... where I'm going to live, how I'm going to live," says Ingram, who has delayed plans to attend graduate school. "It's having this burden of dishing out this money for something that I really hadn't expected."

Nationwide, 20- and 30-somethings such as Ingram are surprised to find that early debts can have a far-reaching impact on the quality of their lives. And while all young people are struggling, experts say, young women between the ages of 18 and 34 may be suffering the most.

Debt in America is nothing new.

For education and homes, cars and personal items, we have always borrowed our way to the American dream. What has changed is our level of dependence on debt to make those dreams come true. In the South Atlantic region, average debt per individual, excluding mortgage loans, is $11,670, a number just below the national average, according to Experian Information Solutions. That figure is close to the amount of debt carried by today's younger generations. In 1983, the median consumer debt for 25- to 34-year-olds was $3,989 (in 2001 dollars). By 2001, the median consumer debt for households under 35 had tripled to $12,000, according to Tamara Draut, author of "Strapped: Why America's 20- and 30-Somethings Can't Get Ahead."

For young women, the trouble often begins with student loans. As they enter the workforce making less money than their male counterparts, young women trying to balance loan payments with burgeoning social lives sometimes turn to credit cards to fill in financial gaps. They spiral further into debt, and all too often parents have left their daughters in limbo, with little or no financial training to figure it all out.

The result? Overwhelming, life-stalling debt.

"These are such no-win scenarios," said Mary Ellen Garrett, first vice president of the Garrett Group, an Atlanta financial advisory team. "Debt is a phenomenon right now that is sweeping in droves, and I'm seeing it more in women than in men. Their biggest question is, How do I get out of this?"

More credit cards

The groundwork for debt may be laid in college or even earlier.

Draut says the country's "debt for diploma" system has made borrowing one's way through college the norm. "A generation ago, student financial aid was grant-based; now it is debt-based," Draut said. "You could work through the summer and pay for a whole year of college. That's not the reality anymore."

In 1977, college students borrowed about $6 billion (reported in 2002 dollars), compared with $28 billion in 1993, according to Draut. A decade later, she said, that number had doubled to $56 billion.

Meanwhile, more women are attending college than ever before — they made up 56 percent of undergrads in 2000, according to the U.S. Department of Education.

But that also means more women are graduating with student loan debt, an average of $19,360 in 2004, based on data from the Project on Student Debt, a nonprofit organization dedicated to finding cost-effective solutions to expand educational opportunity.

Ingram, saddled with that $27,000, had hoped graduating from college would give her a boost — instead she ended up in a hole. After spending two years at De Anza Community College in Cupertino, Calif., she transferred to Georgia State. She unexpectedly had to take out loans when the school denied her request for in-state tuition, even though she was living in a house owned by her parents.

Already, she feels decisions about her future are being dictated by her debt. "It's difficult," Ingram said. "I don't want to be the type who is just trying to pay my bills in a job I don't like, but I'm afraid I will be that person."

And Ingram is in better shape than many women: She's always been a saver, a lesson her mother taught her. When she arrived at GSU, Ingram was unmoved by the credit card offers — she had already been told about the perils of plastic. "Those automatically go into the trash can," Ingram said. "I have one credit card and I only use it once in a while."

Other young women are not as disciplined.

A recent Smith College study found substantial differences in the way men and women handle their finances, and a lot of it has to do with credit cards.

"Women on average have more credit cards than men," said Mahnaz Mahdavi, professor of economics and lead author of the study, conducted with two colleagues. "People with more credit cards tend to have more debt."

Women are also more likely to use their credit cards for personal items or to pay bills such as phone or Internet service, she said. They are less likely than men to pay balances on time or pay in full.

Janice Fiorenza of Dawsonville realized she knew nothing about the financial implications of credit cards. Her first credit card, at 18, had a $5,000 credit limit, which she used to treat friends to dinners and evenings out. "The only thing I have to show for that now is a TV," she said.

At age 21, she moved to Orlando with plans to attend college, but decided instead to sit out the semester while living with roommates who were enrolled in school. She was the only one with money and credit. When December rolled around, she signed up for another card with a $500 limit to help with Christmas shopping. Then, a year or so later, she added a Discover Card. When her total debt reached nearly $7,000, Fiorenza attempted credit consolidation but soon called it quits. She headed home at age 23, with her mom paying her debt.

"I should have had a better structure on finance," Fiorenza said. "I don't want to blame credit card companies, but it is ridiculous with all the spam." She also didn't blame her parents but wished she had learned more from them about money.

Her father had always been the more financially aware of her parents, said Fiorenza, who realized how little she knew when she attempted to buy a car and discovered her damaged credit score. "I knew what a credit score was," she said, "but I didn't know the impact it had on certain things."

Now in her second year at North Georgia College and State University, Fiorenza, 28, is majoring in political science, repaying her mother, and hoping that her future career will help her pay $10,000 in loans. "I'm living the American Debt," she said. "I don't think people realize the damage that it can do."

'A lot of fear'

Even after young women escape the collegiate chaos of credit cards and student loans, their debt problems may only get worse.

By this time, as independent young adults, financial ignorance can lead to embarrassment and avoidance.

Women between the ages of 25 and 34 earn 85 percent of men's salaries, according to the U.S. Department of Labor, and the gap widens with age. As a result, women devote more of their incomes to paying off debts. In 2004, among workers ages 25 to 34, 23 percent of women with bachelor's degrees spent more than 10 percent of their income repaying student loans, compared with 16 percent of men.

The disparity wasn't lost on Michelle Werner, 35, of Savannah, who, despite having a full scholarship to graduate school, took an additional $20,000 in loans to make ends meet. Though her income improved when she took a post-graduation job as an assistant city administrator on the Georgia coast, she was met with a surprising realization: "Men in the same position make more than I do. I thought the whole glass ceiling was fading."

Today she is struggling to pay off her student loans, shifting credit card balances to low-interest cards, and worrying that she won't see any progress until her 42nd birthday.

"I'm just barely getting my bills paid," Werner said. "If it wasn't for the student loans I'm paying, then I'd be pretty well off, but if I hadn't gone to college, then I wouldn't be making any money. People need to understand in college how much they are going to earn when they get out, because it is a much different story."

Werner said if certain lessons had been drilled into her head when she was younger, she might have had a better sense about money. She and her sister shared a credit account when she was 17, but no one really taught them how to be financially responsible, she said. Her brother, however, figured it out for himself. When he was in debt, he took a high-paying hard-labor job on a fishing boat in Hawaii to get himself out. It was something neither she nor her sister ever would have done, Werner said, and it was something no one expected them to do.

For Erica Taylor, it was unexpected circumstances that drove her further into debt.

The 1998 graduate of Spelman College said her debt, the result of student loans and multiple layoffs, left her feeling helpless.

Her early career in mortgage banking came with success but little money. As men she had trained with progressed, she felt stuck, she said. Before she could do anything about it, she was laid off — twice in one year from two different jobs.

She resorted to financing her life — bills, personal items, dinners with friends — on credit cards, all the while doubling her initial debt to about $20,000. "I was so swamped and overwhelmed and depressed ... even though my heart was there to want to pay things off, I just ignored it," she said. Taylor, now 30, is slowly paying down her debt.

That lack of financial know-how, Mahdavi said, was the most troubling finding in the Smith College study. Fewer than 1 percent of respondents, male or female, could answer simple financial questions about topics such as interest rates and federal savings programs. Women, she found, were more likely to not have that basic knowledge.

"When we look at why does this woman behave this way or that way, maybe financial knowledge has something to do with it," Mahdavi said.

For those young women already straining under the weight of debt, they should take their cues from a man.

"What I see out there is a lot of fear," said Jennifer S. Wilkov, a certified financial planner and author of "Dating Your Money," a step-by-step guide to money management for women.

"If [women] get lost, we look for someone to direct us. Men are more likely to figure it out on their own."

With debt, she said, "if you are going to take it on, you have to own it."

FINANCIAL LESSONS TO TEACH YOUR DAUGHTER

According to Karen Zager and Alice Rubenstein, authors of "The Inside Story on Teen Girls: Experts Answer Parents' Questions" (APA Lifetools, $12.95), parents are as unlikely to talk to their daughters about money as they are about sex. Here are some tips excerpted from their book, listed in order of increasing responsibility, that focus on preparing your daughter to become financially self-sufficient:

1. Give your daughter a weekly allowance.

2. As soon as she is old enough to help out at home, provide your daughter with opportunities to earn money.

3. Insist that your daughter save a certain fixed amount or percentage of her "income" each week.

4. Set up a savings account and be sure your daughter understands the monthly bank statements.

5. As she gets older, help your daughter pick a special financial goal, like saving money for concert tickets or a new outfit, and work with her to monitor her progress in that direction.

6. When she is old enough, encourage your daughter to find a part-time job.

7. Once she is earning a reasonable amount of money, it is time for your daughter to have a checking account with automated teller machine access.

8. Explain to your daughter how you budget your money to pay bills, use credit cards responsibly, and save for retirement. Show her the downfalls of paying interest on debts.

9. Teach your daughter about investing her money, including how the stock market works, and how to find out about other investment opportunities.

10. Finally, if your daughter has to file a tax return, don't do it for her. Instead, sit down with her and go through the process together.

Source: American Psychological Association online, www.apa.org/books/teengirls/parent-samp5.html.

(c) 2002 APA, reprinted with permission.