A TV show in the United States is helping people pay off their student loans. The debt can sometimes a very heavy one, and the current levels are causing wide-spread concern. A decent job now requires a higher degree than ever before, and fewer scholarships or financial aids are available. Figures show over a quarter of Americans have student loans. Karina Huber has the story.

This new TV show called 'Paid Off' helps people pay off their student loans and hopes to trigger a wider conversation about the problem. It looks like fun and games, but student debt in America is no joke.

Roughly 44 million - or one in four Americans - have student debt and that number is growing at over ten percent per year. Student debt in the US now stands at almost 1.5 trillion dollars with US graduates carrying an average debt load of more than 37,000 dollars. These statistics are all too real for 32-year-old Sheena Demby who works as a wholesale operations manager in the fashion industry in New York. She has 300,000 dollars in student loans.

SHEENA DEMBY STUDENT DEBTOR "Half of my check - almost two-thirds of my check - goes to paying student loans. Every single month. I can't afford to save. I can't afford to invest. There are times when I'm still eating your ramen noodles and your dollar pizza. It's hard."

KARINA HUBER NEW YORK "How did Demby and so many other Americans get here. Well, college tuition has been rising. Getting a college degree is about twice as expensive today than it was 20 years ago. At the same time, there is less money available for scholarships and financial aid."

JONATHAN BRODSKY US COUNTRY MANAGER, FINDER.COM "Looking at this as a 17, 18-year old, what are you going to do? You're going to sit there and say 'no, I'm not going to get an education.' Every single job out there tells you you need to have a college education."

Demby says she felt the pressure to get a degree at any cost.

SHEENA DEMBY STUDENT DEBTOR "Everybody is pushing you. Finish. Get your degree. You gotta finish school. You gotta do this. You gotta do that. Nobody at any point is saying 'if you do this, when you leave, job or not, you will be in debt. You will be in a lot of debt."

Brodsky says Americans have very low rates of financial literacy. Many don't fully comprehend the concept of compound interest.

JONATHAN BRODSKY US COUNTRY MANAGER, FINDER.COM "So when you look at this and say 'Ok, I'm going to take out a 50,000 dollar loan for my education,' you don't understand that actually means you're paying back a hundred thousand over the next 20 years or more depending on the interest rate you got."

A new study predicts recent graduates will have to delay retirement to 75, in part, because of the burden of student debt. Demby feels trapped by her predicament. For the moment, she's pinning her hopes on becoming a contestant on 'Paid Off'. Karina Huber, CGTN, New York.