Chris Dodd: “one of the most troubling developments in the hotly contested battle among the credit card issuers to sign up new…”

“one of the most troubling developments in the hotly contested battle among the credit card issuers to sign up new customers has been the aggressive way in which they have targeted people under the age of 21, particularly college students. We are engaged, obviously, in a debate about the bankruptcy bill here. The authors of this bill, and I commend them for it, recognize there has been an explosion of people who are taking advantage of the Bankruptcy Act to avoid their financial obligations. It seems appropriate in the context of this bill that we also recognize that there has been an explosion of efforts to sign up younger people, particularly on college campuses, to credit cards, recognizing that, as many have pointed out, these students are ill prepared to meet their own financial obligations. Inevitably, they either incur debt and end up in tremendous difficulty or their parents assume the responsibilities, which can occur with upper-income people who can afford it. Just this past August, to make the point, a fellow by the name of John Simpson, who is an administrator at the University of Indiana, said: This is a terrible thing. We lose more students to credit card debt than academic failure, at the University of Indiana. What I am trying to lay out here is a proposal that is not outrageous.…”