College Students Risk "Burial" By Credit Card Debt

None by KCPW

(KCPW News) More and more college students are using credit cards to pay for tuition and other expenses. The transaction ends up costing universities a hefty sum - last year BYU paid nearly one million dollars in fees to credit card companies.

"We do have a lot of concern about the unwise use of credit which could bury students," says David Feitz, director of the Utah Higher Education Assistance Authority. "We continue to urge students to borrow wisely, have a plan to pay debt back and don't get yourself so over-extended that you may have to drop out of school."

A study by financial company Nellie Mae finds undergraduate students carry an average credit card debt of 27-hundred dollars. Feitz says credit cards are increasingly popular for paying tuition because they're easy to use, particularly with online payment methods. That's fine, says Feitz, if a student has the tuition money on hand.

"The danger is the credit card can become so easy to use that you forget the day of payment is just around the corner," says Feitz. "That can become very difficult for students to recover from."

Feitz says student loans are always preferable to carrying school-related debt on a credit card. A number of Utah colleges, including BYU, urge students to pay tuition with cash or check and now charge a processing fee to offset the expense of taking credit card payments.

Email to a friendPosted in KCPW Newsroom. Copyright 2009 KCPW