NEW YORK — As students pile up ever-increasing education loan tabs, some colleges and universities are starting to question whether they should be counseling these young borrowers, before they end up with debt that will take decades to work off.

Educational institutions have not seen financial counseling of students who get private loans as their responsibility, even though many students have little understanding of debt and their own personal finances. Most schools focus on getting students the funds needed to graduate.

"There has been no discussion about whether this might be to the detriment of the student," said Mark Oleson, director of the University of Missouri's Office for Financial Success, which counsels student borrowers. "It has always been assumed that staying in school is all that matters."

"Education has never been thought of as an investment that involves risk, but it does," he said. "Just like the stock market."

The University of Texas provides counseling, as required by law, for all borrowers who get Stafford and Perkins federal loans, according to UT's Web site. The counseling sessions at UT are usually done online and inform borrowers about their rights and responsibilities under these loan programs, according to the Web site.

Kristen Overmyer, a University of Missouri journalism student, didn't take out enough student loans during her freshman year, and so she turned to credit cards, compounding her debt. She then borrowed $22,000 in 2006 and $23,000 this year from private banks but still needs several more years to graduate.She anticipates taking out similar loans each year.

"When I started taking out the loans, I didn't realize what I was getting into," said Overmyer, who said she hopes to be out of debt by the time she is 40 years old, 19 years from now.

Students' debt problems are expected to worsen because they increasingly are taking out more expensive private loans that don't have the benefits of government-backed loans with lower rates. They're also procuring loans on their own over the Internet, bypassing schools' financial aid offices.

Oleson, a professor in Missouri's Personal Financial Planning Department, is part of a growing group of educators reaching out to counsel borrowers.

The current trend points to worsening student debt levels. The average debt load for graduate students in all fields nationwide ballooned from 1994 levels by 150 percent to $37,600 in 2004, as undergraduate tuition borrowings shot up 108 percent to an average of $19,200, according to the Project on Student Debt, an interest group.

Until recently, the bulk of student loans to undergraduates were federally administered at rates set by Congress such as those administered by student lender SLM Corp. But loans issued by private lenders are the fastest-growing segment of the market, according to the American Council on Education. This market now accounts for 20 percent of all student loans, the council said.

The dangers for students are that private borrowings can't be disposed of in bankruptcy and have variable rates that can skyrocket as high as 20 percent. Meanwhile, the growth of direct-to-consumer student loan pitches on the Internet and cable television has made it easier for students to get private loans for school.

"These loans are marketed as being less labor-intensive to get," said Jacqueline King, director of the American Council on Education's Center for Policy Analysis. "Students think they can go on the Internet and get loans very quickly. You have a situation involving a new and largely unregulated product."

Jonathan Avidan, a 2004 Boston University graduate, took out $18,000 in federal loans at a fixed 3 percent interest rate and more than $60,000 in private tuition loans at variable rates that eventually hit about 10 percent. He calculates he will be debt-free in late 2024.

At the start of his junior year, his parents told him they couldn't pay his tuition. Rather than attend junior college, he chose to borrow money to stay. "I wish I knew at the time that the choice to stay would be the most expensive of my life," he said.

Robert Shireman, the Project on Student Debt's executive director, said some Internet tuition loan sites do not even show the interest rate on the loan under consideration until the student signs the promissory note online. "Technically the law does not require full disclosure until the loan is consummated, which can come after the promissory note stage."

Many who have studied the problem believe schools shouldn't just pair students up with federal loans; they should educate them about the long-term implications of debt.

Some lenders including General Motors Acceptance Corp., Bank of America and J.P. Morgan Chase offer personal finance counseling services to students. However, a Bank of America spokeswoman said the majority of her bank's student borrowers apply for their loans online and counseling is not mandatory.