Figures released today by Push suggest that the average student beginning a degree today could expect to graduate with £23,000 of debt, rising to over £30,000 for some London students. For most people, this is a significant amount of money and represents a real concern, particularly at a time when many will be considering buying their first house.

The Bible views debt as undesirable - Jesus, for example, frequently uses it as an image for sin in the parables. Debt was considered a last resort, rather than a way of extending our income, as it can easily be viewed in our age of (still relatively) easy credit. But Old Testament law also placed strict limits on lenders. Loans were to be forgiven every seven years (Deuteronomy 15:1-11), meaning that no one was kept in long-term debt. Combined with the biblical prohibition on charging interest (Leviticus 25:35-37) - perhaps the most radical financial law in the Old Testament - this command ensured that 'there should be no poor among you' (Deuteronomy 15:4). Today, in contrast, debt can all too easily be a way for companies to make money by keeping others in poverty - the greater the loan, the higher and longer-term the repayments.

Over the last two years or so, since the beginning of the financial crisis, the idea of 'debt' has gone from being a regular part of life in the national consciousness to something dangerous and frightening. But not all debt is the same. When we think about debt, we often only look at the 'headline' amount - in this case, £23,000. The Bible also views debt in terms of time - specifically, seven years. Our headline figure is rarely the amount actually repaid, and has little or no bearing on how long it will take.

Einstein is (apocryphally, as it happens) said to have claimed that compound interest is 'the most powerful force in the universe'. It doesn't take a grasp of advanced maths to realise that the interest rate makes all the difference to both the term and the total amount. When it comes to credit card debt, the rate can be crippling and the debt long-term. £23,000 at a fairly normal rate of 19.9% would take 87 years to pay off on minimum repayments (the greater of £5 or 2% of the total balance), and cost a total of £96,000 (£73,000 in interest). Even paying £500 a month still incurs an additional £17,000 in interest over the 6 year and 8 month term. By contrast, student debt is just about the cheapest debt around - the rate is little more than inflation. It also does not have to be paid back until the graduate is earning £15,000 a year or more.

£23,000 is a lot of money however you look at it. But as debt goes, student loans are - short of totally interest-free loans from family members - probably the most biblically sound debt there is. At least £23,000 means £23,000, or thereabouts. That's the kind of transparency we should be demanding from every lender.

(See our material on The Bible and Money: Managing one's money in the end times)

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