Credit Card Blog

That’s the finding of Representative Jodi Tymeson of Iowa, along with a legislative committee that studied the impact of credit card companies marketing their products on college campuses.

Officials from Iowa State University, and the University of Iowa appeared before the committee on Tuesday to defend their decision to allow credit card companies to target students. The officials cited records that compared average student credit card debt to average student loan debt. The students carried a credit card debt of about $1,100, versus about $23,000 in student loan debt.

Says Tymeson, “The aggressive marketing of credit cards to students is not as big a problem as we thought.”

The universities have an exclusive contract with Bank of America, which they say protects students from being bombarded by a multitude of credit card providers. Other providers can still market their cards to students off-campus or through the mail. Student addresses are public information, and easily obtained by companies for marketing purposes.

Iowa State University Alumni Association president Jeffrey Johnson thinks students should get credit cards and learn to use them responsibly: “If our students are going to do normal society, adult-related purchases or transactions, they have to have some form of credit.”