CASH MONEY: College students: Beware those credit card offers
Yahoo
Newsvine
Del.icio.us
Facebook
Google
Reddit
Fark
It's almost September, and if you're enrolled in college for the first time, you've probably received a stack of credit card applications that dwarfs your pile of new textbooks.
Before you fill out and return one of those temptingly brief and easy applications, ask yourself just how much self-control you have. If you have even the slightest inkling that you may not be ready to manage debt, take a pass. According to a comprehensive study of student credit cards by college loan firm Nellie Mae, that's often what happens to students. Here are Nellie Mae's frightening statistics, all from 2004 (but likely still quite accurate):
The average student carries almost $2,900 in credit card debt by his or her senior year.
43 percent of all college students hold an average of four or more credit cards.
When you're scrambling to get enough credits to graduate, it becomes easy to miss payments.
“Oh, I'll just pay that off after I graduate and get my high-paying job in the real world,” some of you might think. In reality, your first job after you graduate probably isn't going to come with a six-figure pay check.
Trust me, when you're pulling down $26,000 a year and paying real bills for the first time, it may be harder than you think to make more than the minimum payment on your cards, much less quickly pay them down.
I warn you — not because I'm one of those financial columnists who never makes a mistake balancing his checkbook and pays off his car loans early — but because I'm a dumbass who made the mistake of racking up a couple grand in credit card debt before I walked across the stage for my diploma.
I wish back then someone had asked me how much self control I really had. Apparently, not enough.
(0)