Though I do not support credit cards for the average College student. I think they are a valuable tool for young people to develop money management skills (good or bad). There is nothing like having to dig yourself out of a credit card hole to teach one personal and financial responsibility.

Hey, in college 1 credit card T-shirt = 3 to 4 extra days of not having to do laundry. That's easily worth 150 - 200 FICO points.

I, unfortunately, got drawn in by Premier Bank Card in college. It took me three years to pay it off...despite never using it. Oh how I wish I had this site before then...

@Smashville: But you know better now don't yah. My point exactly.

@Smashville:

Please explain.

I really wish schools would just ban these predatory types from campuses altogether.

A'course.. I've only been at state universities, where we get both those concerned with our financial well-being as well as our eternally damned souls.

@Yoko Broke Up The Beatles: Gather round and I will tell you a tale...

The year was 2001...I had no income...so I felt, I need a credit card.

I signed up with Premier Bank Card, which had a very small 160 dollars worth of annual fees and a 250 dollar limit.

Considering I had no income...it took me a year to pay of most of the fees...of course, when the year started up again, the fees were added back on...this time, they extended past my credit limit...it took another year to pay it back down below the credit limit...at which point I cancelled the card and scrounged enough money to pay it off. And that is my story of how I paid about 500 dollars on a credit card I never used.

@FTWGeek: Not to mention that it's pretty hard to get student loans on your own if you don't have any credit. I got a credit card my freshman year so I could build up some credit and not have to have my parents co-sign on my loans the next three years. used it to buy my books and my parents paid the bill.

@FTWGeek: Not everyone who has a credit card in college screws up.

Or, if you really want the freebie, do as I did and fill out fake information and get your t-shirt and be on your way.

@johnva: That is why I refrained from putting "everyone" into the same bucket.

I was lucky enough to have Virginia Credit Union on my campus so I got a low-limit Visa card (I couldn't get myself in for any more than $500). I still have it and it's still the best credit card I have.

@veg-o-matic: There's nothing wrong with the freebies. If people can't handle credit cards, that's their problem.

@mookiemookie: And that, children, is what we call fraud.

@FTWGeek: Freshman year there were a lot of these around and I got the free stuff with fake info like a lot of people... Later that year I really signed up for one and have had the discover card since 2000. I use it on occasion but like the idea of having nearly 10 years of good credit history on one account still open. If you can teach them discipline it may work for some students... Then there was my dorm neighbor who got one and maxed it out (2300 I think) in 2 days just buying shit. Never had a single intention of paying it back. He just said it would go away before he really wanted to buy something on credit anyway (like a house or car)... Idiot.

@rpm773: I recall on more than one occasion walking waaaaaaay out to the parking lot, getting in my car, driving 30 minutes, going through the mall, buying new underwear, driving back, parking, walking back ... all so I could avoid doing laundry for a few more days.

@FTWGeek:

I think it's good for a student to have a credit card - not so they can get into debt and learn a valuable lesson about digging out, but so they can be responsible from the get-go and start building a credit history.

The lesson isn't to not get a credit card, but to do research and pick the best one instead of picking the one that gives you the best swag - and to get one, not a whole bunch.

@FTWGeek: I think that it's going a bit far to even be against it for the "average" student, though. The average college student IS going to have a credit card during their adult life, and college is a good time to learn responsibility for managing your own life without having full adult responsibilities yet.

I think the real lesson is that it's a really bad idea to pick a credit card based on what cheap swag someone at a table on campus gives you. It should, rather, be an informed decision and preferably one that they get parental guidance of some sort on. That way, it can be a lesson about interest, paying in full, etc simultaneously.

All we got was a 2-liter bottle of soda when we signed up for credit cards. =(

@strandist: Maybe, but pretty benign. I'd put that slightly above the "fraud" of filling out fake contact info on a website that has no real need to ask for it. I'm sure the people who run those booths know and count on the fact that a lot of people will do that, and factor it into their marketing budget (because that's what it is). Even the "fraud" probably makes them money/accomplishes their goal, if it encourages more people to come and talk to them, since some of those people will sign up for real.

I never did that, but I don't see it as particularly wrong to do.

@friendlynerd: Shop around, then. There are few credit union credit cards that offer as good rewards programs. They DO tend to offer low interest rates, but that's not recommended use of a credit card anyway.

18 years old. Away from home for the first time. Totally on my own....

Credit card offers galore! Ooooh! I can buy a Sega Genesis with no real job! Ooooh!

It was a recipe for DISASTER! It took me almost 10 years to recover and learn my lessons about credit. But learn them I did.

@veg-o-matic: (OP here!) My campus actually DID ban credit cards from soliciting on campus, and I think it made a big difference. Instead of everyone having 2-3 cards, only those of us who wanted a card to build credit history (or for some other reason) had one. It makes a big difference when students actually have to go out and seek a credit card themselves, instead of having one shoved at them with a freebie.

(Not that I didn't still get in trouble, but the total percentage of students who got in trouble with credit cards at my campus was much, much lower than other schools.)

@veg-o-matic: You get both types at private schools too, sadly. No matter what school I'm at, there's usually one walkway I try to avoid where everyone is barking at you from the left and the right, get our card, save your soul, JEEEEEESUS is coming!!!!

@subtlefrog: Most colleges view their students merely as money making machines and will exploit any possible means to squeeze every penny out of them. The reason the credit card people get on campus is because they are paying the college a ridiculous amount of money to be there.

@Smashville: You call 160 dollars of annual fees small???? Egads.

@Eyebrows McGee (now with more baby!): The mother of one of the guys in our house worked for an ad firm contracted with whomever makes Camel cigarettes. She unloaded several boxes of Joe Camel T-Shirts on us, just about the time the courts decided old Joe had to be retired.

For some grungy college dudes, it was truly a great gift.

College freshman, avoid this money trap: Don't go to college if you don't have to.

Don't go just because everyone else is doing it or you don't know what you want to do. Figure out what you want to do first and then go to school.

Do everything you can to get a scholorship or grants.

Go to an in-state public school.

Get a part-time job and work your way through college.

Basically, do whatever you possibly can to avoid taking on student loans. All the rest, buying cheap books, not excessively using credit cards, all that is secondary.

A disapproving glare should also be directed at college administrators that allow students to be tempted by these offers while on campus. The kickback that they get from the card issuers is what persuades them to look the other way while some of their students commit financial hara-kiri.

The students that really want a card could still be able to walk in to a bank and apply for one (and the more determined certainly will) ,but letting these people on campus to ensnare financially unsophisticated pups in an agreemnet that takes post graduate education to decipher and understand is ...Un-fucking-conscionable , yes ,that's the word that I was looking for.

Note to college administrators : When the bill finally has to be paid for the good times had on your campi , a large part of the money that the now- former students have to send to pay interest will come out of the donation that they would have sent you. While you are getting a pittance up front from the credit card companies to poison students financial lives , the card companies have a stronger claim on the students earnings after they graduate.

Maybe your parents should have given you some advice and taken it upon yourself that nothing in life is free. My parents gave me a credit card on their account in high school when I went traveling on a school trip (which I paid for myself) in case of emergencies and to buy things they knew about and approved of if they could not be with me. They TRUSTED me with it. My mom was firmly against me getting a credit card until junior year when I got my own with a fairly decent limit and no fees that over 10 years later I still have. I used it for books and to purchase school items and plane/train tickets off the internet for the protection. I have excellent credit, my mortgage was no problem to get considering I saved enough to put 2/3rds down (and I live 10 minutes outside of Manhattan so it's not cheap) and still have enough savings for a year in case I lost my job (which I did but I'm still making it.) And by the way I didn't earn a ton of money and my colleagues made fun of it but every month I split my direct deposit to my checking and savings account, so if I didn't see it I couldn't spend it and with every raise I got added more to my savings. So it's time to stop blaming the credit card companies and the students for making dumb decisions, I have never carried a balance once in my life and never had a fee credit card. Sometimes you should take some personal responsibility and realize if you dont have a job you can't afford it. I worked hard in college and before I would purchase anything I would figure out how many hours I would need to work in order to pay for it to see if it was worthwhile. I'm lucky, I knew if I was going to go to college a lot was going to be placed on my back, my parents opened up a savings account for me when I was five and I put some kind of deposit in every year and when I was in high school every paycheck save one or two a year a Christmas time went straight into the bank. The cash I got for babysitting was my spending money. My parents didn't have a ton of money so college was a joint effort for all of us. If you cant handle being on your own than you shouldn't go away to college. My parents still keep that first card in my name even though I don't have a copy to show how long my credit goes.

@dragonfire81: I forgot to add the /sarcasm tag to that portion.

I wish all the college book websites and resellers and shit existed like they do now when I started college in 2002. Back then, they were in their infancies and often didn't have the book you wanted or at a price that made shipping worth it. I spent so much on books and got so little back.

I don't get why people buy all their books from the school bookstore. I try to reserve that for books that are cheap and aren't any cheaper online, especially with shipping.

Anything expensive, it's almost always better to buy online.

@BridgetPentheus: In summation: You have never made this mistake therefore everyone who has made this mistake is an idiot.

@italianscallion33: Sometimes you can't get a book from anywhere but the store. A lot of my profs offered their own study materials, like workbooks. They weren't that expensive, but you couldn't get it off Amazon.

@strandist: They're welcome to come find me and talk to me about it. Just refer back to my application and ask for Richard Head at 2200 Fatback Lane.

@italianscallion33: I worked with new student orientation and we always recommend that first semester freshman get their books from the bookstore. Buying books online is tricky and face it, you have no idea what you are doing that first semester. Editions can be hard to understand, you don't know how professors work and you don't want to get trapped into buying an edition that you can not return. After that first semester, we definitely want students to explore other options, but new students are stressed out enough, it is easier to just stick to the bookstore and buy used copies there if possible.

@Eyebrows McGee (now with more baby!): I ordered some online last month because I knew I was about 5 days out from having to do laundry.

@veg-o-matic: Gah...the religious wingnuts are so irritating. More irritating is the (well-meaning) people who try to argue with them. Dude, if you ignore him, he'll get bored and leave!

@calquist: My university offered freshmen a service in which you would send them your books list (you had to do the work and cobble a list of all the needed texts) and they would select the books for you, for a small fee. You had to specify condition of the book you wanted - some students wanted to buy the cheapest ones, except for one or two they wanted to keep for the future. And the bookstore employees would go through the lists, put together the books and bag them with your name on it. All you had to do was come pick up your bag and pay.

@mookiemookie: IIRC, these applications usually require showing your driver's license. I've seen some where they actually take and photocopy the license...

@TomCoughlin: Thumbs up to that! :) I'm at a state school and ended up with about 5 grand in loans at the end of undergrad. I expect to be able to pay them off before I'm done with grad school, since I'm a paid research assistant. Glorious.

@FTWGeek:

My school had a credit union and I missed out on four years of easy credit-building because I was petrified to have a credit card.

If I had bothered to see what all the fuss was about, I'd have found out that just by being a student I could get an instant $500 limit with an extremely low interest rate and used it to buy my textbooks with. Then when I graduated, I'd have four years of credit history instead of just one.

Here's a protip for college students as well: Keep track of the number of lines of credit you have. I followed the advice of this article and signed up for a single credit card through a bank before starting school (1). After graduation, I purchased and financed a new car (2). I've been looking to buy a home with a conventional loan but with a middle credit score of 750, over 10% down, $9k in debt (car) and an income in the mid 50s, I can not get approved for a loan for $130k without 3 open lines of credit in good standing.

@johnva: i support this comment. i also support running these money changers off college campuses, jesus-style.

@TomCoughlin: State-schools are not always cheaper than well endowed schools.

@rpm773, Eyebrows McGee (now with more baby!), katstermonster: this thread is total WIN! you 3 made my monday here.

@morlo: Well of course not, nothing's universal. But the vast majority of the time, for the vast majority of people, an in-state tuition is going to be a much, much better deal. Is that better?

@zarex42: Freebies are great, but when the hucksters try to schmooze students (who they know are inexperienced in the Ways Of The Card, and who they target because of this) via free junk, it's kind of a lopsided confrontation.

Schools should be more aggressive in keeping those types off campus. I feel the same about flagrantly branded events too, like the Red Bull truck parked in front of the Union, or a big inflatable jumping castle brought to you by Luna Bars.

Awful how schools sell out their students so regularly.