Tawnee McCay is the director of Housing and Financial Counseling at the Family Life Center, a HUD approved housing and financial counseling agency. McCay said she has seen credit card solicitors on school campuses and would like to hang posters next to them stating the real effect of credit. School environments shouldn't be so heavily advertised. In her research, McCay has found that most high school and college students with a credit card don't even have basic knowledge of good money management. Counselors at the Family Life Center are devoted to educating people about good money management skills and warning them of the deadly spiral of debt.
People can dig deep holes without knowing how interest works.
McCay said she sees students who get credit cards, plan to pay the minimum monthly payment and don't realize that only about 5 percent of their payment actually goes toward the principal. This lack of education is how many students get in trouble in the first place and continue to stay that way for the rest of their lives, McCay said. She would like to see more education in the classrooms to teach children and young adults about good money management. In an article in the Salt Lake Tribune, William Stillgebauer, a clerk of the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for Utah, said bankruptcies in Utah soared to a record 15,138 cases in 2000. McCay said she believes the number of bankruptcies correlates directly with poor financial education of young people in Utah.