As an understandably concerned student activist, Kaiser successfully lobbied to limit card marketing on his campus. Sean took two jobs while attending college, trying to get his bills under control, says the Norman, Okla., mother. Lesser evils . Credit card abuse also threatens young lives in less extreme ways. Late payments and delinquencies will mar a student's credit report, and a bad report can affect his or her ability to land a job or go to graduate school.
Many employers routinely look at the credit histories of potential hires.
At the graduate level, most students have to rely on loans for their educational costs,'' says Julia Perreault, director of financial aid at Emory University in Atlanta. Parents should send their kids to college understanding how credit cards work, caution financial experts. Colo. Experts advise students to resist getting multiple cards and to keep a record of all purchases. The plastic should be reserved for emergencies and not for anything you can eat, wear, or listen to. Too often people say they are going to get a credit card for emergency purposes and a new dress becomes an emergency,'' says Sunny Orr, assistant director of the Center for Financial Responsibility at Texas Tech University in Lubbock.