The Extra Credit Students Don't Need

¿ A ban on offering any gifts when marketing credit cards. The prohibition would include anything of value, including food, clothing, sports equipment, travel vouchers or coupons.

¿ A prohibition of any campus employee, student group or campus department from accepting financial support or other goods and services from credit card banks, issuers or vendors in exchange for allowing them to market cards to students.

¿ A ban on the selling of any student lists to credit card companies.

The campaign isn't an effort to ban access to credit cards by students, but rather create more informed consumers, said Gwen Dungy, executive director of NASPA.

"We are trying to use colleges as change agents," Mierzwinski said. "And maybe some will think twice and not get cards."

I don't think any college student needs a credit card. If students don't have the money to pay for school supplies, textbooks or food (the top reasons they use credit), what are they going to do when the bill comes due?

Oh yes, they'll do what many seasoned cardholders do. They will roll over their balances to the next month and dig themselves deeper into debt.

Not surprisingly, in the Nellie Mae report, only 21 percent of undergraduates with credit cards reported that they paid off all cards each month, and 11 percent said they made less than the minimum required payment each month.

I have two nieces in college, one a senior at Spelman College in Atlanta and the other a sophomore at Bowie State University in Maryland. Neither of them has gotten a credit card. They've both been able to manage just fine without leaning on plastic in lean times. What a valuable lesson.