Political Quotes

“Mr. President, there was a troubling report recently released by the U.S. Public Interest Research Group. It is entitled ``The Campus Debit Card Trap.'' The report from PIRG documents how colleges and universities across the country have signed deals with financial service companies to provide campus debit cards and prepaid credit cards to students. Sometimes these debit cards are linked to a student checking account, and many times the school's name will appear on the card. In some cases, the student ID card is turned into a bank debit card. We are also seeing colleges and universities make deals in which banks issue prepaid debit cards to make financial aid disbursements to students. When they are managed appropriately, debit and prepaid cards can be a good thing for students. It can give them an effective way to conduct transactions and receive their student aid payments. But, unfortunately, as the PIRG research found, some of these campus debit card arrangements raise some serious questions. Why did the U.S. PIRG title its report, ``The Campus Debit Card Trap''? You guessed it. Many students are being charged unreasonable fees that are costing them millions of dollars. According to the U.S. PIRG report, 15 financial institutions have debit or prepaid card contracts with 878 campuses that serve more than 9 million students. It is a big business. Forty-two percent of all students nationwide go to school on these 878 campuses.…”