"I just took a Winterim class and had to take out a whole seperate loan just to afford my Winterim class," said Jessica Christiansen, a junior at UW-Stout.

She is out in the real world and footing her college bill on her own.

"I have a Stafford loan, I also have a pell grant to help me as well," Christiansen added.

Even though she'll pay for her loans later, she worries now.

"I know I'm not gonna graduate on the 4 year plan and it's just thinking about all this stuff you gotta pay off when your done," Christiansen said.

But there is a silver lining in the college cloud.

"What the president is proposing is to spend more money on Perkins loans which means the eligibility may increase and even more students would qualify," said Doug Mell, a spokesman at University of Wisconsin-Stout.

He says the proposals outlined in the State of the Union would benefit students at a school like UW-Stout. He says more than 600 students receive Perkins loans at the university while about 2,500 receive some form of financial aid that would benefit from Obama's proposal.

"Anytime the president talks about increasing funding to any aid program being it Perkins, Work Study or SCOG that's going to effect our students," Mell added.

"The actual tuition of the class was about 850 so that's how that adds up," said Pat Villalpando, a freshman at University of Wisconsin-Stout.

He recently took a Winterm class like Jessica Christiansen. His bill was about $900.

"It's only a month long and it's hard to get money for that class," he said.

Last semester his tuition bill was close to $5,000. He says he would welcome the president's new ideas.

"It shouldn't be hard for someone to get a loan because we're eventually gonna have to pay it back anyway and for higher education they shouldn't have to go thru extra trouble to get that money," Villipando said.