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Students find themselves maxed out

By Justin Hilley

Tuesday, June 30, 2009

A 2009 report by Sallie Mae, the nation’s leading provider of student loans, revealed undergraduates are carrying record-high credit card balances. The average amount of debt carried by undergraduate student cardholders has increased by 46 percent since 2004, reaching $3,173.

Here’s a look at how some students have dealt with acquiring and managing credit card debt.

ACQUIRING CREDIT CARDS

Alex Bowman obtained his first credit card in high school after his $500 car loan application was denied for not being high enough. Bowman, Medicine Lodge junior, wanted to buy a car that his friend’s father was selling for $500, but the bank only gave vehicle loans that were at least $2,000.

Once he got a credit card to pay for the car, Bowman said, he quickly hit his $1,000 limit because of accrued interest and late fees. Although he now only has $600 of credit card debt – far below the national average for college students — he said if he could do it all over again, he would wait to get a credit card until he was financially secure.

“If you don’t make enough money to pay bills on time every month, and you have to worry about other living expenses, a credit card is not an easy way out,” Bowman said. “It is an easy way to dig yourself a bigger hole.”

Jennifer Cook, branch manager for Commerce Bank in the Kansas Union, said students should only use credit cards for overdraft protection. Cook said half of University students she worked with were generally financially responsible, and the other half were not.

“It really boggles my mind coming out of high school that they have not even been shown a checking account, how to keep a checking account, or how to write a check,” Cook said.

Chris Buckland, Topeka graduate student, said he accumulated about $3,000 in credit card debt while he was an undergraduate student. He said he got his first credit card in case of emergencies, but still maxed out its $500 limit, so he ordered another card. Buckland said he racked up a majority of his debt when he studied in Germany last year. He now has three credit cards.

“I don’t like using my card,” Buckland said. “My first two credit cards, I just have a balance on them, I don’t use them anymore. I just pay off the balances.”

SPENDING HABITS

Danya Goodman, Bedford, Mass., graduate student, has two credit cards: One card gives her 1 percent cash back on purchases and 3 percent cash back on gas, and the other card is used as an emergency in case something happens to the other one.

Goodman said that she used her credit card almost all the time when purchasing items because she gets money back, but that she only used it if she knew she had enough money.

Shortly after receiving her undergraduate degree, Goodman’s car needed repair, but she could not afford to immediately pay it off. She applied for a credit card that had a 0 percent interest rate and used it to pay for the repairs, paying the balance off over the next two months.

“You can take advantage of the credit cards if you understand how they work,” Goodman said.

The study conducted by Sallie Mae found that 60 percent of undergraduates had been surprised at how high their credit card balance had reached, and 40 percent said they had charged items knowing they did not have the money to pay the bill. The study also found that only 17 percent of undergraduates said they regularly paid off all cards each month.

Paige Hendrick, Leawood senior, said she would go out to dinner with her friends and instead of splitting the bill, she would put the entire bill on her card and have her friends pay her in cash. Then she would go out to bars and spend the cash instead of using the credit card, which her parents would see online.

“I would never give my parents the cash. My parents just finally were fed up and said, ‘We’re not doing it anymore’ and they cut it completely up,” Hendrick said.

Hendrick said that the $1,000 credit card she had was maxed out and that she wanted another one for emergencies, but did not trust herself not to abuse it.

Hendrick’s past experience with credit cards gave her an opportunity to offer advice and to warn students who were still accumulating debt.

“Immediately stop using your credit card until you can pay them off,” Hendrick said. “Pay as much as you can and try to get that debt off as quickly as possible.”

PAYMENT HABITS

Cook said she could help University students cancel their cards or set up a payment plan at Commerce Bank if they were unable to make payments on time.

“A lot of kids want to hide from the problem, and that’s not what you should do,” Cook said. “You’re in college now. You need to confront the problem, get it taken care of and resolve it.”

William Lewis, professor of personal finance, said credit card companies could be forgiving when it came to late fees and annual percentage rates.

“If you’ve been a customer of a credit card company and you don’t overdraw and you usually pay on time, they’ll waive those things periodically,” Lewis said. “I think people ought to call or to ask — ‘Hey listen times are tight, things are going down. I’d like to get this APR lowered.’”

Goodman said she paid off all of her credit card debt each month and felt “lucky” to have always had a job that allowed her to pay for things and parents who had helped her out when she could not afford something.

Bowman said some students did not realize that whatever balance remained at the end of the month would be added to the principal and charged interest every month until it was paid off. He said he paid the minimum because it was all he could afford.

Bowman had one simple suggestion for students who have massive credit card debt: “Don’t buy shit you don’t need.”

— — Edited by Kristen Liszewski

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