By
The Wildcat Opinions Board
Every day throughout campus, tables stacked with innocuous-looking T-shirts, teddy bears and day planners lure UA students to fill out applications for credit cards.
However, these gifts hardly give hint to the implications of the credit cards that accompany them. Credit cards require a level of responsibility that many students fresh out of high school may not yet be ready for.
As a result, debt is an epidemic among young people, sending many sliding into the red while still in their 20s.
According to the Web site for Nellie Mae, a student lending and financial advising company, college students are, on average, $12,000 in debt upon graduation - some of which may be attributed to credit-card spending.
But despite these daunting numbers, credit cards are an inherently good tool that can be used to learn financial responsibility and build a solid credit history - as long as students are aware of what they are about to undertake when they get the magical piece of plastic.
Duryan Durocher, a member development coordinator for Arizona Federal Credit Union, boiled down the consequences students face from credit cards to two reasons.
"In general, they are having problems," he said. "I attribute it to one, not knowing about credit, and two, having access to more cards."
Ignorance is undoubtedly a contributing factor to the debt young people accrue from their credit cards - so while credit card company employees are passing around clipboards and premiums, they should also be doling out information that will keep students aware of the implications of carrying a credit card.
Brochures outlining the benefits and dangers of credit cards should be available to every student who applies for a credit card. Aside from the $12,000 average debt faced by college graduates, undergraduates who carry credit cards also have an average balance of nearly $2,000. And the average age for filing personal bankruptcy, a major credit-history trauma, is only 25.
The University of Arizona may soon offer a credit advising service, Credit-Wise Cats, through the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences and the Students in Free Enterprise organization. The service provided by this group would be immensely helpful, but students should also be handed information from the start before they are forced to seek it out.
And if all a student really wants is a gratis T-shirt, then fine, get the freebie - they just need to be responsible and destroy the credit card when it arrives as well as call the credit company and cancel the account.
A Visa or MasterCard can be one of the most helpful items a student can have as they make the transition into adulthood, but students would be wise to follow the advice of Linda Block, who researched student credit habits for the Credit-Wise Cats program.
"There are advantages - just don't abuse it," she said. "Have one card, pay on time, don't carry a balance and budget how much you can afford."
