[Dion]

In his book, "Walden on Wheels: On The Open Road from Debt to Freedom " Ken chronicles his journey out of debt.

He was kind enough to share his story with us this week.

By the time Ken Ilgunas was wrapping up his last year of undergraduate studies at the University of Buffalo in 2005, he had no idea what kind of debt hole he'd dug himself into.

He had majored in the least marketable fields of study possible — English and History — and had zero job prospects after getting turned down for no fewer than 25 paid internships.

"That was a wake-up call," he told Business Insider. "I had this huge $32,000 student debt and at the time I was pushing carts at Home Depot, making $8 an hour. I was just getting kind of frantic."

Back then, student loans had yet to become the front page news they are today. Ilgunas could have simply deferred his loans or declared forbearance. He also could have asked his parents (who were more than willing to help) for a leg up. He could have thrown up his hands and gone to grad school until the job market bounced back.

Instead, he moved to Alaska and spent two years paying back every dime. And when he enrolled at Duke University for graduate school later, he lived out of his van to be sure he wouldn't have to take out loans again.

He decided to write a tell-all in an article for Salon.com. "The next day, I had like 85 new Facebook friends and hundreds of messages and emails," he said.

Duke was none too thrilled, but, fortunately, they didn't kick him out. "They wanted me to sign a contract saying I wouldn't sue them if anything happened to me, but they also created a law that more or less banned future van dwellers from campus," he said.

But it all paid off. He graduated in May 2011 — completely debt free.

http://ca.finance.yahoo.com/news/duk....html?page=all