Is that true these days? At my university 20 years ago, the credit card companies would bribe 18-year-old freshmen to sign up for their cards.
The conventional wisdom at the time was that (a) we were college students and were therefore more likely to have earnings in the near future to cover those small credit limits, and (b) we were college students and were therefore more likely to have parents to bail us out if we got in trouble with the credit card, and (c) there's no better time to snag a lifetime customer than at the very beginning of their adult lives.
The students working in the mail-room of my dorm were ... less than meticulous about sorting. My bills occasionally went to the wrong box, leaving insufficient time for me feel safe that my payment would arrive on time. When this happened with Discover, I just called customer service and they said they'd waive the late-fee since I called in advance. It happened once with Citi, I called and they said I would have to do an electronic payment with a $10 service charge. paid the bill and immediately canceled the Citi card.
Guess which (of Discover and Citi) I'm a lifetime customer of, and which one I will never sign up for again.
P.S.
After re-reading the above, it strikes me how much of a "period piece" the comment is. The bill arrived in the mail, I had to mail in payment, and I spoke with a person on the phone when I called the credit card company.
Ha. I mean, I got a free CD, which itself dates the story. But even more old-timey? That Citi card I referenced above was actually an AT&T Universal Card. The "Universal" was because it was also a calling card! On the back was a separate number I could use to place calls from a payphone, at cheaper rates than dropping coins into it.
It's been many years since the card had that feature, but the branding relationship must be strong, because it's still called that, and my card still sports an AT&T logo on the front.
The reason student loans aren’t dischargeable in bankruptcy is because it’s basically literally impossible to collect on them, you can’t repo a college education
You can revoke the degree. Given that most people out of school don’t remember most of school anyways this should be enough for most.
That was a “student card,” so optimized for people who don’t have a credit history. After having that for a while I was able to leverage it into standard rewards cards.
I'm still FB friends with the girl that gave me a free t-shirt for signing up. LOL.
My parents didn’t co-sign, though I did use their incomes for the “household income,” which I don’t believe was a lie.
This was about 5 years ago.