Students at Camosun kicked off participation in a national campaign marking student debt levels reaching the $13 billion mark on January 21st. This is defined as loans disbursed by the CSL Program, less those that have been repaid, and it is increasing by $1.2 million dollars a day, or more than $430 million per year. $13 billion is more than the debt of some provinces and approximately the cost of the Afghanistan mission to date. This figure does not include the approx $5-8 billion in provincial student debt. This is largely the result of cuts to funding that have caused the share of PSE operating budgets funded by tuition fees to more than double between 1985 and 2005, rising from 14% to 30%