Credit cards one test grads haven't faced

Aiken High School seniors are 18 days away from graduation and a summer away from realizing a dream. They are college-bound.

A superb little program called Project Continued Success has brought them through the hurdles of academic preparation and college admission and financing.

But after all the hard work, their teachers realize they have one more obstacle to surmount: easy credit.

The Aiken seniors were prepared for ACTs, admissions essays and those daunting financial forms. They are not prepared for the onslaught of enticing credit card offers that will greet them their first day on campus.

The hawkers are out during orientation. Sign up for a phone card and get a free T-shirt. Take a line of credit and get a funky water bottle (you can use it for beer). Use the card and, lo and behold, your credit line goes higher!

The Class of 1996 is a juicy crop of consumers, ripe for the picking. All those nice graduation cards congratulate them on entering the world of adults. And what could be more adult than carrying plastic?

Creating a need

Mom and Dad have already been hit up too often. Summer jobs can pay for only so much. Take a break. Hit the mall. Get what you need today; worry about paying for it later.

And along the way, begin that wonderful tradition called brand loyalty. Get used to that little friend with the hologram being hidden away in your wallet. Don't leave college without it.

Sometimes easy credit can indeed be a college student's best friend. It can pay for that unexpected flight home, extra textbooks, that gap in tuition.

The problem lies in the fact that while credit cards fly at 18-year-olds - as many as a dozen offers per person - financial counseling doesn't.

Some students understand annual fees, interest rates and late charges because their parents explained it to them back home. Some, at a relatively impulsive time of life, can resist the urge to buy now and deal with it later. Some know the dangers of earning a degree and a bad credit rating at the same time.

But many others don't. And they may be the kids who are most in need of things, and most vulnerable to the easy-credit way of getting them.

"We've had some low-income kids come back after their first year of college with $2,000 in credit-card charges," says David Clemons, an Aiken counselor. "They've maxed out their cards."

No bailout for some

Kathy Kaplan, director of Project Continued Success, has fought hard to get her Aiken students off to college. Last year, 55 percent of Aiken seniors landed on campus, most of them lower-income kids. Earlier this week, Project Continued Success was honored in Columbus as one of the state's models of best educational practices.

Mrs. Kaplan takes most of her challenges in stride. She can deal with poverty and low societal expectations for urban students. She knows how to walk a first-generation college student through the fine points of college admittance.

But she has some trouble with the idea that, after all of Aiken's hard work getting students in to college, a 4-inch piece of plastic can bounce them out.

Each year, Tom Blumer, an accountant who does workshops on money management, drops by to warn Aiken seniors about the coming credit deluge.

"When you get to college, they're going to do a very complicated test to see if you qualify for credit," he tells them. "They're going to see if you have a pulse."

The students laugh. Then they grow silent as Mr. Blumer lays out the financial pitfalls that await them next fall.

At the end of class, they write about what they learned. "That this is a need-to-know thing," one student writes. "That I shouldn't use credit cards - and I just applied for one."

Krista Ramsey's column appears in The Enquirer on Saturdays. Write her at 312 Elm Street, Cincinnati 45202 or fax at 768-8340.

Published May 18, 1996.