The darn banks should know better! How dare they make attractive credit card offers to college students. Cue the violins:
Andrew Kunka charged $4,000 to his credit card several years ago to help pay tuition at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles. Now a first-year law student at Rutgers University’s Newark, N.J., campus, Kunka struggles to make the minimum payment on the card, which is nearly maxed out.
“I feel like credit card companies target us because we really have no financial awareness,” said Kunka, who’s 22. “We’re barely out of our homes, barely having experiences as adults, and they throw these things at us and they don’t make you aware of what you’re signing into.”
Note to Mr. Kunka: Stop charging.
Now, for a reality check, we turn to Kenneth Clayton of the American Bankers Assocation:
In testimony before Congress, Clayton told lawmakers that credit cards helped cash-strapped students stay in school, build their credit histories and provide a financial safety net in emergencies. He said that imposing new restrictions on marketing cards to college students would hurt many responsible students who need them.
In addition to the two-thirds of college cardholders who pay their balances in full each month, the rest keep an average balance of $452, down from $559 last year, according to a recent survey of college students by the Student Monitor, a market research firm.
The issue here is personal responsibility — or lack thereof — not a need for more government regulation.
