As UNM students return to class this fall, they can expect to be greeted by the familiar sights, sounds and temptations of credit card solicitors, a growing trend at colleges and universities throughout the nation.
Kelly Rote, a communications manager for Consumer Credit Counseling, said her national credit counseling agency continues to see an increase in the number of recent college graduates seeking help with out-of-control debt.
"Education is really important," Rote said. "Education begins at home. Children should have a basic understanding of how credit works."
To help combat the growing student debt problem at UNM, Pam Olson, who teaches consumer and family finance courses at UNM's college of education, has helped establish an informal committee to curtail the dozens of credit card solicitors who frequent the Albuquerque campus throughout the school year.
Olson's small group of faculty and staff from all over the UNM campus has helped implement some new policies in regards to how solicitors operate. She said that beginning this year credit card companies will be charged $100 a day for the privilege of being on campus.
Olson also said credit card solicitors will now have to adhere to a strict rules when it comes to solicitation. Some of the rules include restrictions on where they can solicit; although, the rules will not apply to the athletic department, Olson said, because that department has its own policies.
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The restrictions on solicitors follow a resolution passed by the state legislature in 1999 and a subsequent reading of the resolution to UNM's Faculty Senate in October of last year.
The document addresses concerns that college students are enticed into applying for credit cards by being offered promotional gifts, and that most students can't afford to pay the monthly balances.
"You remember your first love, first car - and for some reason - your first credit card," Rote said.
Sam Thompson, a spokesperson for the Attorney General's Office, said credit card companies are anxious to give college students their first credit card, because they are likely to remain loyal to that company. She also said credit card companies will give students a card even if they have no income because their parents are likely to help them out.
"With all the other pressures facing young people today, credit card debt need not be one of those pressures," Olson said. "A credit card is not free money."
If a credit card has a $2,000 balance at 18.5 percent interest and a student pays only the minimum monthly payment, "it will take you 11 years to pay off the $2,000 and you will have paid $1,934 in interest," Olson said.
"Of course, this supposes that during those 11 years you don't charge anything else."
