18
BACK TO SCHOOL
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN MONDAY, AUGUST 17, 2009
FINANCE
Maxed out students battle credit card woes
BY JUSTIN HILLEY jhilley@kansan.com
A 2009 report by Sallie Mae, the nation's leading provider of student loans, revealed undergraduates are carrying record-high credit card balances. The average amount of debt carried by undergraduate student cardholders has increased by 46 percent since 2004, reaching $3,173.
Here's a look at how some students have dealt with acquiring and managing credit card debt.
ACQUIRING CREDIT CARDS
Alex Bowman obtained his first credit card in high school. Bowman, Medicine Lodge junior, wanted to buy a car that his friend's father was selling for $500, but the bank only gave vehicle loans that were at least $2,000.
Once he got a credit card to pay for the car, Bowman said, he quickly hit his $1,000 limit because of accrued interest and late fees. Although he now only has $600 of credit card
debt - far below the national average for college students - he said if he could do it all over again, he would wait to get a credit card until he was financially secure.
"If you don't make enough money to pay bills on time every month and you have to worry about other living expenses, a credit card is not an easy way out," Bowman said. "It is an easy way to dig yourself a bigger hole."
Chris Buckland, Topeka graduate student, said he accumulated about $3,000 in credit card debt while he was an undergraduate student. He said he got his first credit card to use in case of emergencies, but still maxed out its $500 limit, so he ordered another card. Buckland said he racked up a majority of his debt when he studied in Germany last year. He now has three credit cards.
"I don't like using my card," Buckland said. "My first two credit cards, I just have a balance on them, I don't use them anymore. I just pay off the balances."
SPENDING HABITS
Danya Goodman, Bedford, Mass. graduate student, has two credit
cards: One card gives her 1 percent cash back on purchases and 3 percent cash back on gas, and the other card is used as an emergency in case something happens to the main one.
Goodman said she used her credit it card almost all the time when purchasing items because she gets money back, but that she only used it if she knew she had enough money.
"You can take advantage of the credit cards if you understand how they work." Goodman said.
A study conducted by Sallie Mae found that 60 percent of undergraduates had been surprised at how high their credit card balance had reached, and 40 percent said they had charged items knowing they did not have the money to pay the bill. The study also found that only 17 percent of undergraduates said they regularly paid off all cards each month.
Paige Hendrick, Leawood senior, said she would go out to dinner with her friends and instead of splitting the bill, she would put the entire bill on her card and have her friends pay
her in cash. Then she would go out to bars and spend the cash instead of using the credit card, which her parents would see online.
"I would never give my parents the cash. My parents just finally were fed up and said, 'We're not doing it anymore' and they cut it completely up," Hendrick said.
Hendrick said that the $1,000 credit card she had was maxed out and that she wanted another one for emergencies, but did not trust herself not to abuse it.
Hendrick's past experience with credit cards gave her an opportunity to offer advice and to warn students who were still accumulating debt.
PAYMENT HABITS
"Iimmediately stop using your credit card until you can pay them off," Hendrick said. "Pay as much as you can and try to get that debt off as quickly as possible."
William Lewis, professor of personal finance, said credit card companies could be forgiving, when it came to late fees and annual percentage rates.
"If you've been a customer of a credit card company and you don't overdraw and you usually pay on time, they'll waive those things periodically," Lewis said. "I think people ought to call or to ask — 'Hey listen times are tight, things are going down. I'd like to get this APR lowered."
Goodman said she paid off all of her credit card debt each month and felt "lucky" to have always had a job that allowed her to pay for things and parents who had helped her out when she could not afford something.
Bowman said some students did not realize that whatever balance remained at the end of the month would be added to the principal and charged interest every month until it was paid off. He said he paid the minimum because it was all he could afford.
Bowman had one suggestion for students who have massive credit card debt: "Don't buy shit you don't need."
Edited by Kristen Liszewski
VINYL (CONTINUED FROM 17)
personal comeback for individuals when they discovered vinyl existed, which he said happened to a lot of people in college.
COMPARED TO CDS
Gassaway said that when comparing vinyl to CDs, vinyl was better for listening at home. Bigus said he thought the music sounded more realistic and "live."
"If I get something on vinyl, I don't listen to the CD anymore," Bigus said.
Aley Shoffner, Wichita senior, has worked at Love Garden, 936 1/2 Massachusetts St., for more than a year. Love Garden, a CD and record store, has been selling vinyl for almost 20 years. She said Love Garden sold a lot more vinyl than CDs with its combination of new and old records available.
Shoffner said that when she really liked an album she might get the CD, but she always wanted it on vinyl, too.
"CDs are more disposable for me. Records are like my back up copy."
Shoffner said. "It's like a good, solid copy to have."
Kent Szaloaderbach, Wichita Junior, said he got into vinyl during his senior year of high school.
"The sound has richer tones; it's fuller," Szauderbach said. "It kind of permeates the atmosphere better."
Szlauderbach said vinyl's sound quality was better than CDs and said the only real drawback was that vinyl record players were not portable. He said CDs turned the music digital, changing it to numbers instead of vibrations, as it was when it was recorded on vinyl.
"People are definitely noticing vinyl again, young and old," Crough said. "Record companies are taking new releases and packaging them as a record and digital download, which seems to be a great idea," Crough said. "You get the big art and music right to your computer.
Crough attributed some of vinyls re-emerging popularity to the new bands that used vinyl.
WHAT IS BRINGING VINYL BACK?
Shoffner said more releases were coming out on vinyl as well as more re-pressings, where new copies of old albums are made. This also leads to an increase in prices, she said, as record companies take advantage of vinyl's growing popularity. Shoffner said she thought vinyl was more popular in Lawrence because the town had good record stores where people could get anything on vinyl, unlike Wichita, where she grew up.
"I think it's awesome," Shoffner said. "I can get all kinds of releases I couldn't get. Even smaller, local bands have releases on vinyl."
He credited indie bands with putting in a lot of effort to make quality vinyl records. He said he tended to purchase records with a "strong
Szaulderbach said the album covers made vinyl records more aesthetically pleasing and said he liked to listen to old blues records.
Chance Dibben/KANSAN
Warren Gassaway, Neodesha junior, poses against a wall of decorative vinyl in his apartment. Gassaway has been collecting records since his senior year of high school, and during that time has come across such rarities as a British print of the Beatles "Revolver" and a copy of The Rolling Stones "Sticky Fingers" with a zipper cover designed by artist Andy Warhol.
"It's nice to hear how people heard it back then," Szlauderbach said. "It's definitely trendy."
sense of album," meaning the songs transition smoothly and the band has a certain sound, or theme, to its album.
"It's cool because it makes bands focus more on making an album instead of a single," Szlauderbach said.
He said he liked to have albums he would enjoy listening to all the
way through.
"It may not be better, but it's definitely different than shuffling on the iPod," Slauderbach said. "Plus, no matter what happens, if there's an apocalypse, records will still be there."
---
Edited by Derek Zarda