Affinity Programs

Posted by: Meredith K. | Dec 30,2007


I’ve written before about how universities receive kickbacks from credit cards for being able to market to students on campus.  To me this doesn’t seem entirely awful on the surface.  University administrations are sometimes getting 15 million dollars at a time, nothing to sneeze at.  The bulk of the problem with credit cards is how the cards are used, not the terms of the card.  

However, this isn’t always the case.  As this blog entry points out, sometimes the terms on student credit cards are entirely unfair, even if the student is being perfectly responsible in their use of the card.  The example he gives is this: a student puts $100 on a card.  The next month he pays $75 on his bill, leaving a $25 balance.  In a double billing scheme (the right word) the student is charged interest on the $100 even after he’s paid 75% of it off.  Clearly, this is an unfair practice, and terms like this are why so many students fall into hard times with credit card debt.  It’s not all necessarily because they’ve made dumb purchases and then defaulted.  

The writer makes another vital point.  Isn’t it the university's job to nurture students and give them a safe environment to study?  Of course it is.  So by allowing credit card companies to come onto campus, they are in effect taking advantage of their own students.  The answer is not to ban credit card companies from coming onto campus, but perhaps to only allow those credit card companies that have corrupt terms like double billing.  At the very least, a university of college needs to provide credit seminars, educating students just how debt and interest can get out of hand.  

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