Credit Card Debt Management

The use of credit cards has gone from 67% in 1998 to 75% presently. Students are falling victim to marketing schemes offering free t-shirts, free food, and many other gimmicks to collect credit card applications or even just permission to mail out credit card apps at a later date. An article by Baruch College in New York targets education as the primary reason for rising student credit card debt.

Today, far more college students are racking up debt than ever before. The primary reason is the education system, which in many cases does not provide sufficient or any resources for students to educate themselves on personal financial management.

It does seem that, aside from predatory lenders themselves, parents and educators are most at fault for the student debt crisis. And it is a crisis. One that has some students dropping out of college or committing suicide to escape their burdens of debt. It is shameful.

Yours truly was once a college freshman without a clue on anything financial, beyond how to write a check - and I was homeschooled! For skeptics out there, the homeschool education I received was very comprehensive. But for some reason, my parents omitted financial education altogether … and education on the Greek gods, for which I later chastised my mother while prepping for the Humanities mid-term exam sophomore year. But I digress.

My parents were not unique, but were actually the norm, unfortunately. Like many other naive college students, I ran off to college and got a credit card freshman year because it was being pitched by a popular kid, came with a free t-shirt and all my friends were doing it. What about credit card marketing practices, debt consolidation, interest rates, Universal Default Policy, credit limits, credit reports, FICO scores, the importance of paying all bills on time, and so on?

Is it possible that there is a lack of adequate financial education in high school because parents and teachers consider it irrelevant and want to discourage credit card usage at such a young age? There are some parents who allow their children some first-hand experience with the credit card game while still in high school, with limits and abundant supervision. This is necessary because there does seem to be a lack of education in the school system and ultimately, the buck stops with parents. If parents don’t educate their children, someone else will after they leave the nest - and it may not be the messages you want them to hear.

The Consumerist had an interesting post recently. It seems the recent fight against credit card companies recruiting students on campus has legislators up in arms and lenders getting creative.

The Iowa City Press-Citizen reports that state legislators are aiming to curb Bank of America’s credit card recruiting efforts on state college campuses. Ohio Attorney General Mark Dunn recently sued credit marketers with Citibank ties for advertising “Free Burritos” available to hungry Ohio State students. The advertisement failed to mention that students would be required to complete a credit card application.

Syracuse University has a ban already in place against on-campus credit card marketers. Marketers are also prohibited from giving gifts in exchange for credit applications under university guidelines. Citi decided to go just off campus to the Pita Pit and hand out free food in exchange for the completion of forms that allow mtvU credit card applications to be mailed to the consumer. Sneaky, sneaky. Of course, the event was heavily marketed with on-campus flyers, but the actual dirty deeds were done off campus.

Really, something must be done, and sooner rather than later. Legislators seem to be slowly trodding their way toward that goal.