Help - student loans!

[somuchdebt]

I had to get my bachelors degree in 6 years instead of 4 because I had (have) severe depression that required me to defer a lot of my classes. I'm a lot better now thankfully, but I'm going to be around $69 000 in debt. The province I'm from (Nova Scotia) has a debt cap program they always told me I would qualify for - now I find out I don't quality because nursing is a professional program, and professional programs don't qualify for the debt cap program. Great.

I'm starting to feel so hopeless. I'm thinking about going up north to Nunavut for a year, but I'm concerned because I'm positive I'd become depressed again living up there because of the lack of sun. My friend suggested looking into jobs on oil rigs, but it doesn't look like they pay much more.

Does anyone have any suggestions? If you had a lot of debt and managed to pay it off in a reasonable amount of time I'd love to hear from you. Or anyone really.