College Students Face Consumer Debt
Feb. 15 -- When college students talk online, you’d expect them to discussthings like classes or dorm romances. What you might not expect aremessages about life with plastic.
“Credit cards have definitely made my life harder,” one frustratedcard user writes on CollegeClub.com, an online community of college students. “Credit is a blessing and a curse,” respondsanother.
As thousands of students head off to college each year, credit-cardrecruiters are waiting, with applications in hand, to recruit new cardholders. And with teenage consumerism on the rise, marketers are making creditmore appealing and more available to students than ever before.
But that appeal can be ruinous, experts say, especially for those who lackthe financial experience needed to handle a credit card.
Now, in response, lawmakers around the country are seeking legislation thatwould limit the availability of cards on campus and combat credit’sseductiveness.
A Degree in Debt
Students are faced with a barrage of hard-to-resist credit-card offersoutside college classrooms and dining halls, and in their dorm mailboxes.Card recruiters set up tables in high-traffic areas on campuses and offerfree gifts — compact discs, T-shirts, coffee mugs and posters — tolure new credit applicants.
The pitch apparently works. Seven in 10 undergraduates have at least onecredit card, a recent study by the Consumer Federation of America found.
But many experts agree that those applicants often apply for credit on awhim and lack the financial knowledge and resources to manage a creditaccount. The vast majority of those college students with credit cards gotthem during their first year in college and, astonishingly, one in fivecollege cardholders carries debt of more than $10,000.
As the number of card-carrying students rises, so does the debate overwhether college students should have such potentially devastating access topersonal credit cards.
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