" My wife has tons of credit cards. She has so many magnetic strips in her wallet, her purse points north." -Peter Sasso, Comedian (Reader's Digest, Sept. '07)

Unlike Mr. Sasso's wife and unlike what society believes of it's college students, I do not have many credit cards. I have one credit card. I have nursed that student credit card to maturity since 2003. I usually pay at least the minimum amount every month so Wells Fargo rewarded me with a 45% increase in my credit limit. For two years, I've been trying to lower my interest rate and even got tips on how to do it from some of the WF bankers themselves, but it never worked. Because of a family financial problem that lasted for the past few months, my credit card reached it's limit and then went over it's limit earlier this month. I was slammed with $119 in fees. I tried to call them to explain my situation and was hoping that they can perhaps ease up on the fees but they were completely unsympathetic. So after being a loyal credit card customer for four years, I cut up that Wells Fargo platinum visa and never looked back. I'm planning to switch to an American Express or Discovery card instead. The article from my previous post was extremely helpful to me for making that decision.
When I did my research in Sacramento on higher education affordability, I found a fundamental gap in understanding amongst politicians on why student credit card debt is becoming such an issue. They believe that students get themselves into debt and can't get out of it because they aren't educated enough about debt. Visions of college students throughout the state ignorantly going out shopping every day for things that they don't need is usually the conclusion they come to. I'm not saying that those students don't exist but most students are aware of their spending and do have limits when they sense that it would be unwise to buy certain things when they don't have enough money to pay for it. A few of the articles I came across argued that much of these students use credit cards to buy basic things such as food, transportation costs, housing, and various fees. One article stated that on average there's a $3,500 gap between the maximum financial aid money that a student is allowed to receive and the actual cost of attending college per year. The more I learn about the system in this country the more I realize that there's something seriously wrong with how it actually turned out.