Young Adults Losing Out On Credit With Credit Card Bill
College students have long been a favorite market for credit card companies. For the past few years, college students, even freshmen, have had a relatively easy time getting a credit card. Small wonder, what with credit card companies practically falling over themselves sending pre-approved credit card applications to student’s mailboxes and setting up booths on campus that offer various freebies from t-shirts to electronic devices to students who apply for a credit card with them.
This is all well and good since credit cards are actually a very useful convenience for college students. However, the unfortunate truth is that college students who have credit cards inevitably get themselves into credit card debt trouble. What makes matters worse is that most of these purchases are for items that have little to do with the academic efforts of students but are more along the lines of “social” and “recreation” type of purchases instead. The situation of young adult credit card holders got worrying enough that many credit card advocates lobbied for tighter control on credit cards for college level consumers.
A recent survey from Salli Mae shows just how bad the situation is among college level credit card holders. According to the survey, the average credit card debt for this demographic is $4,700. The average number of credit cards among college students is at 4.6 and 84% of college students have at least one credit card to their name. Many graduating college students also went out to the work force already with huge debts to their name, hurting their ability to take out loans and, in some cases, their chances for landing a job.
With the credit card bill in place, this will be a thing of the past. The credit card bill will disallow releasing of credit cards to college level consumers unless they can prove that they have the proper income to pay off their cards or they provide a co-signer for their credit card applications.
However, when credit cards become tougher to get, college students are going to miss out on the convenience and safety of paying with plastic. Parents are therefore faced with a choice between providing for a safe and convenient way for their students to pay for products and service and putting their college level children at risk for identity and credit card fraud. For parents who believe they can trust their children to make the right decisions, it might be wise to get them credit cards this year, to avoid the probable difficulties that they will encounter when the credit card bill is active.
