Should College Students Embrace Credit Cards

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In an age of convenience credit cards are a common part of life. Banks have seen a trend in the past ten years of increased credit card usage and have determined the profitability in the area. As we enter into a change in demographics, baby boomers reaching retirement and college students graduating and entering the work field, colleges are seeing the ability to profit from this shift.
But should a university enter into this type of agreement, offering credit cards to their students? Does this violate the privacy of the student when a college or university sells the student’s information to a bank or credit card company? These are some of the concerns currently being looked at by many. Universities and colleges have been receiving millions …show more content…

As disclosed in the investigative report of the Huffington Post, credit card companies and colleges have been signing contracts that are not in the best interest of the student.
Consequently, colleges and universities are taking advantage of students that have not educated in or have acquired the ability to manage their income and debt ratios, by entering into these contracts and finding avenues to defer shortfalls in their budgets, at the expense of the student. Offering these affinity cards are a conflict of interest when a college or university should be providing an education to a student and instead are reaping the benefits from their miss guidance.
In an effort to control the situation in 2009 a new consumer credit card protection law was passed, the Credit Card Accountability, Responsibility and Disclosure Act prohibiting banks from using aggressive marketing practices on students. The law prohibited banks from offering credit cards to anyone under age 21without a cosigner. The problem with this law was in the fact that the bank could still enter into contracts with the colleges and universities encouraging the affinity cards, but contracts did not have to be disclosed publicly, still allowing for the conflict of interest to occur.

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