Three very scary words: credit card debt. Either we or someone we know has had to worry about how to prevent debt from accumulating. And as many of us will be graduating soon and heading into a world of economic distress, we have enough on our plates with tuition loans, not to mention paying off our credit card bills. While it might be too late for college seniors, an initiative proposed by State Treasurer Alex Giannoulias to protect college students from credit card companies just passed through the House without any opposing votes and is now on its way to the Senate and Gov. Pat Quinn. If all this bill needed to pass was our OK, then it would have become a law long ago. But there’s no better time than the present.

Just a few months ago, Giannoulias came to campus to collect signatures for a petition against credit card marketing strategies that we as college students have come to know all too well: the “Get a free sweatshirt if you give us your information!” and “Get a sub if you sign up for a card today!” Unfortunately, those tactics have worked wonders and many college students are now in debt. In fact, according to USA Today, in 2008, college seniors with at least one credit card graduated with an average of $4,138 in card debt. Of course, credit card debt cannot solely be attributed to companies that solicit for students’ information on campuses. That’s only a small portion of the overall problem of college students in debt. But when credit card companies are trying to lure students with marketing strategies like free sweatshirts and sandwiches – especially knowing that most college students are broke – it’s getting harder and harder for students to say no.

This bill would make it not only easier for students to say no to those marketing tactics, but it would also make it illegal for credit card companies to solicit college students’ information on campuses. Other parts of the bill include: prohibiting colleges from selling databases of students names and information to card issuers, requiring schools who had contracts with credit card issuers to disclose that information to the public and asking schools to offer courses in financial literacy if credit cards are marketed to undergraduates.

But like we’ve said before, while this bill will take a lot of pressure off of signing up for credit cards, it will only mitigate the problem rather than solve it. To prevent students from getting themselves into debt, we suggest that more educational workshops are offered by schools about how to use credit cards wisely and how to pay the bills. Some people might already know how to use a credit card responsibly, but it never gets old. Credit cards aren’t going away and neither is debt. We’ll be using them for a long time, so it’s crucial that we learn to use them responsibly.