Vultures

Credit Card Companies! They love college students, we prove easy targets for companies looking to cash in with high interest credit, often 20% or more for credit card balances. Credit card companies go to great lengths to enlist heavy spending, debt ignorant college students in their credit programs, often an industry standard 0% APR for a fixed amount of time, enticing students to spend frivolously now, thinking they can easily pay it off before their rates change.

However, spending self discipline is one of the hardest aspects of college life for students to master. All three of my roommates have some amount of credit card debt, and while I have and use my own credit card I am very careful to pay my bill in full to avoid exorbitant interest fees.

Credit card offers form the majority of our daily mail, with solicitations coming from an increasingly diverse pool of companies offering teaser rates and creative reward schemes to entice customers. Credit card companies also compete with one another for the privilege of holding your debt in their account by offering 0% on balance transfers to get students to shuffle debt from other accounts to the new one. This entices students to open multiple accounts, which could lead to substantial debt, and if you miss a payment, a lower credit score, or even bankruptcy.

There is a national Do Not Call list for telemarketers, why don't we make one for 'junk mail,' especially for credit card companies. Credit card offers don't bother us during dinner, but they are very much unwanted and annoying as well as wasteful. Creating a national Do Not Mail list would be just as effective as the Do Not Call list and would also cut down on wasted paper.