Credit Card Debt and College Students
Nov 14th, 2007 by admin
Credit card companies use massive marketing campaigns and the main target of them is the students. Students are flooded with credit card offers through the mail, internet, and even on campus that often attract them with free coffee mugs, and other gifts. The propositions also attract by a low introductory teaser interest rate. Day after day credit cards become more and more popular among students. It is not wonderful then that credit card use among college students is at an all time high and still rising. According to the statistics proposed by Nellie Mae, in 2001 83% of college undergraduate students owned a credit card, in difference with just 67% in 1998. More interesting fact is that 96% of all college seniors own a credit card. The average number of cards that college students have owned is 4.25, including the number of seniors having a whopping average of 6.13 cards.
In general there is nothing bad in owning a credit card. Credit cards are often suitable and sometimes even necessary. Not all the students know how to behave with these cards and many college students are simply not aware of the drawbacks and factual expenses of using credit and, as a result, often mistreat their credit. Very often it happens from the very beginning. The significant credit card balances accepted by many students proves this fact. According to the words of Nellie Mae, the average credit card debt of college students is $2,327, with a 27% of all students who have a balance greater than $3,000. As it is expected, senior students have even larger amounts of debt. The average credit card balance of senior students is $3,262, with 40% carrying a balance greater than $3,000. The facts show that nearly 1 in 10 seniors has a balance exceeding $7,000. Every year the number of cards owned and the debt carried increase progressively as a student progresses through college.
Unnecessary credit card debt is a very big problem in fact. Especially when it is combined with student loan debts, credit card debt can cause a grave financial lumber for current graduates.