College Students and Credit Card Debt

Know someone headed off to college this fall? Encourage them to learn how to make a budget, limit their spending, and watch out for temptations posed by credit cards. About 70% of college students have at least one credit card. Of these, more than 90% are carrying debt of over $4,100 on average. In 2004, seven out of ten freshmen had a zero credit card balance. Today, that figure is only one in seven.

(Data from Marty Lundlum, Kris Tilker, David Ritter, Tammy Cowart, Wichu Xu, Brittany C. Smith, “Financial Literacy and Credit Cards: A Multi Campus Survey,” International Journal of Business and Social Science, Vol. 3, No. 7, April 2012, pp. 25-33.)