Discover Debt Freedom!

There was recently a story featured on the Dave Ramsey show about a young college junior who was generally a good student, but got himself in $15,000 worth of credit card debt. The growing pile of debt gave the student a great amount of anxiety. He then began to take anxiety medication to help him get through the day. Eventually he checked himself into a hospital and was pending evaluation before being put in the psych word! Fortunately, a few of his friends called his parents and his parents brought him home from college to get the help he needs. This is of course, a rather extreme example of what can happen when students get college cards, but these types of situations do happen on occasion. Should college students get a credit card to improve their credit? Absolutely not.

Many financial gurus will disagree with this opinion, primarily because they are speaking from a theoretical standpoint. They will argue that you should get a credit card, put a few charges on it now and then and pay it off on a monthly basis. That will build your credit score and put you well on your way to becoming financially successful. That sounds all well and good in theory, but that’s not what happens in real life.

Many students are harassed on campus by credit card companies that pay the college to be there on a weekly basis. Some college students are offered free t-shirt, hat, or meal at Pizza Hut if they sign up for a credit card, and many of them happily fill out the form thinking that they can get a free meal and just cancel the card later, or they might just sign up because they’ve fallen for the myth that you need to build your credit score.

After the t-shirt is in the closet and the meal is gone, the credit card is still there. Along with the credit card comes the temptation to use it, and many college students who have credit cards were never taught how to use them responsible. They casually make charges for meals here and there and stuff they need to get on with life, and eventually the charges start to pile up.
There’s no way the vast majority of college students should qualify for credit cards. Most of them have no ability to pay back any debt because they don’t have jobs, and if they do, it’s likely working 10 hours a week at $7.00 an hour at some work-study position. That’s still next to nothing in terms of income. Credit card companies know that parents almost always bail out their children out of their credit card debt while in college, so they provide the cards to them anyway.

If you’re pretty good with money and get yourself a credit card in college and pay it off on a monthly basis, you’ll come out just fine from college. The problem is that most students don’t do that. They don’t use their credit cards responsibly, and instead get themselves into a pile of debt on top of the student loans that they already have. It’s just not a winning game plan to hand young people with next to nothing in financial knowledge and very low incomes a piece of plastic that will enable themselves to get into tens of thousands of dollars of debt!