Credit Card Laws Protect Students from Debt

Published

March 11, 2011

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Recent statistics show that consumers in their late teens and early 20s are taking on fewer credit card accounts, as growth in cardholders in this demographic nearly came to a stop since the law was passed, according to a report from the Orlando Sentinel. This may be a function of credit card lenders no longer being able to easily market to college students on campus with free gifts and other promotions.

“I don’t recall seeing Visa or any of them setting up booths on campus for the past couple of years,” Cody Swain, a recent University of Central Florida graduate and a staff assistant at UCF’s business incubator, told the newspaper. “As far as frivolous credit-card spending, I would say it has been reduced a lot now. It’s still there to some extent, but there’s definitely a greater sense of caution now than in the past.”

One of the main reasons for this is likely that anyone under the age of 21 who signs up for a credit card must either have an adult co-signer or be able to provide proof that they have enough income to cover the monthly payments they may incur, the report said.

A number of recent studies have shown that the Credit CARD Act is working more or less as intended, allowing consumers to cut credit card debt significantly in the last year.