Study Tracks Student Use of Credit Cards

In today?s ?duh? news, more than half of all college students have a credit card that is billed to them. A little more troubling, though, is how many of those students with credit cards are floating hefty balances ? the median hovering around $1,000.

According to a CNN.com story, half of the half of the students with credit cards (that’s a quarter, for those who didn?t bother with (a) college, (b) math, or (c) calculators) were carrying a balance ? due in large part, some fear, to tuition payments. Others might be closer to the truth if they’d suggest late night beer runs, pizza, and purchasing term papers off of the Internet.

The data comes from an American Council on Education analysis of 2003-2004 federal data released Monday. “If students are floating their credit card payments, that’s troubling, because there are certainly less expensive forms of credit,” said Jacqueline King, director of the ACE Center for Policy Analysis.

Of course, you can?t necessarily buy a new pair of sweet kicks off the internet with a student loan or Pell Grant.