Pick a Card, Any Card

Judging by the letters in my mail-box these days, you might think I'm a high-roller.

In the last four weeks, I've gotten applications for seven Visa cards (four of them Gold Cards), five Mastercards, two American Express Cards (one Gold, one regular), a Discover Card, a Sprint Foncard and an offer for a $7,500 loan. This week there was even a Visa Gold application for my mother.

My junk mail is probably not that much different from most students. The piles of unopened envelopes in campus trash cans suggest that I'm not the only Harvard undergrad these credit card companies find so attractive.

From tables on the streets of Harvard Square to the bottom of Coop bags, it seems like everybody everywhere is trying to get college students to sign up for a new credit card. We are being deluged by offers from companies looking to make a quick buck from people who may or may not know that "APR" doesn't stand for April.

While it's clear where these offers are coming from (opportunistic companies), it's less clear how these people tracked us down. The credit card applications that have landed in my box come from Manchester, N.H., Wilmington, D.E., Sioux Falls, S.D. and just about everywhere in between. They have slogans like "special student offer," "congratulations!" and "Hey Pal."

Discover Card has been distributing a funky yellow, black and orange brochure with the catchy mantra: "If you don't got it, get it." The message? If you want to be cool, sign up for their credit card.

The message is hucksterism in its lowest form--the credit card companies are taking the serious matter of personal finance and are subverting it with unnecessary and inappropriate social connotations.

Now I'd bet the companies that send these offers out probably say that they're just trying to help students. They're doing us all a big favor by offering us the opportunity of alternative methods of payment. They're making our lives simpler with magic plastic, right?

But the reality is that many students--even here at Harvard--have never had a credit card of their own by the time they come to college. The attraction of suddenly being able to walk out of a store with a big-screen TV by merely signing on the bottom line occasionally proves too much to resist.

"These cards are like whiskey in the hands of an alcoholic," says Dave Speights, a Maryland-based consumer-protection expert. "The only difference is that here the alcoholic is a relatively irresponsible twenty-year-old."

Credit card companies target college students aggressively for three reasons, according to Speight. The first is brand loyalty. Research shows that students who choose a product they like early on are very likely to stick with it, to the exclusion of all others, for as many as 20, 30 or even 40 years.

Second, the companies realize that college students, especially Harvard students, are likely to make and spend plenty of money once they graduate. "There's an assumption that people at Harvard are going to do very nicely, thank you," Speight says.

Third, college student collectively spend a significant amount of money on discretionary items even while they're still undergraduates. Many are well-endowed by mom and dad. And all those CDs, nights on the town, clothing add up to huge potential profits for the companies.

"The companies send out these cards, and the students will run up a big bill, and probably the worst thing that will ever happen mom and dad will pay it. It's purely a profit motive," Speights says.

Certainly it would be paternalistic to suggest that college students--especially Harvard students--aren't capable of deciding for themselves whether or not they need an instant $10,000 credit line. Most students probably do understand that magic plastic really isn't all that magical.

"But our concern is that students are able to get so many credit cards without the ability to pay them off," says Ruth Susswein, the executive director of Bank Card Holders of America. "And what can happen is that if a student gets into credit trouble, it's going to be a part of their credit history for the next seven years. That means when students get out of college and they want a car loan or a loan for graduate school, they may not be able to get it."

Susswein, who earlier this year testified about credit card solicitations before Congress, advocates mandatory personal finance classes for all junior high school students. She also recommends that card issuers put on informational seminars about the realities of credit cards when they come to campuses across the country to, in her words, "hawk their wares."

Yet the fact that credit card companies continue to spend millions of dollars annually in mass mailing after mass mailing is proof enough that many college students are charging themselves into financial ruin.

It's those people the companies are after. It's how they make their money. It's what they're business for.

And it's why they're after you.