Credit card companies are targeting college students because they can be given higher interest rates due to their credit risk, and because students are likely to go into debt. This means they will be paying the companies a lot of interest over a long period of time. Credit cards should not be solicited on campus because the students lack the sufficient knowledge, income and responsibility to properly manage credit cards.
They are here at the University of Utah, at the bookstore, on the sidewalks, in the union building; their prey is the University of Utah student. This bombardment of credit cards is having a terrible effect. Sean Moyer, working toward law school, got himself so far into debt that he hung himself in his closet. He had 12 credit cards and was more than $14,000 in debt. His mother said, "It just didn't occur to me that you would give a credit card to an 18-year-old who was at the time making minimum wage."
I was suckered into signing up for a credit card; well, actually, it was seven. The problem was I was convinced I could get a free beanie without any obligations. I jumped at the opportunity. "You just need to fill out a few applications," they said, still avoiding the term credit cards. The credit card companies hired students to make it even more difficult to recognize what the booth really was.
I would like to warn other students that it is not worth the possibility of falling into the same credit trap as thousands of others.
Jacob Tyler Jewett
Salt Lake City