A Student's Survival Guide

“To be educated, a person doesn’t need to know how much or to be informed, but needs to have been exposed as vulnerable to the transformative events of an engaging life.”
- Thomas Moore


For most students, college is the last carefree step before their life begins. Although they should have an understanding of finances, including using credit, credit cards and managing debt, they should not have worries about unnecessary monthly bills.

Tuition? Yes!

Living expenses? Yes!

Student loans? Yes!

Credit cards? A loud and resounding NO!

For the vast majority of college students, this is not the case. With aggressive marketing campaigns targeting students, the average undergraduate has at least one credit card and carries an average balance of $2,169.

The problem is that students are flooded with offers from card issuers. They often set up tables right on campus at the start of the school year to hand out applications and free goodies. More offers land in students' hands at the college bookstore, stuffed into bags with the receipts. Still more get pinned to bulletin boards.

Why and how do the credit card companies get away with this marketing barrage on college campuses? They pay the college handsomly for this. It generates a good deal of revenue for the college.

The unrestricted marketing of credit cards on college campuses is so aggressive that it now poses a greater threat than alcohol or sexually transmitted diseases.

As a result of high credit card debt, students have lower GPAs and a higher drop-out risk, because they are forced into taking a job to pay down the debt. Some ruin their credit score making it difficult to rent an apartment, afford insurance or get a job. Even relationships and mental health suffer. But with increasing education costs and no co-signing requirements, credit card issuers have found students an easy market to tap into.

A large part of the problem is that most students simply have not been taught how to handle credit cards by their family or the educational system. Only 15% of high school students take a personal finance class and that doesn’t even scratch the surface of real financial education. Even at the high school level, it is too late to be teaching students about money. This very important subject should be ingrained in our childrens brain as early as kindergarden.

Parents are sending the wrong message to their children by exhibiting the buy now pay later mentallity that our society has become. Don’t we ant our children to have what we never had? I’m not referring to material goods and services, I’m talking about education.

Education AND financial responsibility. Students are to be held accountable for the charges they make, so they just might think twice about charging that beer and pizza party or spring break vacation.

Always remember that credit is a loan. It’s real money and must be repaid. Before you aply for your first card, determine how it will be used. For emergencies? OK, but everyone that first gets a credit card say that it will only be used in emergency. You need to have the discipline that will not allow an emergency party or two.

As a parent, you might consider using a pre-paid debit card with a budgeted amount available every month. Students and parents need to talk more openly about the financial needs of the student.

This way a realistic budget can be made.