Students should be responsible for financial choices

By Neil Gebhardt

In response to the editorial and news article about credit card marketing, I think that Mr. Giannoulias has good intentions but the legislation is a bad idea.

Many companies give away free items as incentives, banks give away U of I folders, and grocery stores give away reusable bags for the latest “green” craze, but nobody is introducing legislation to stop them.

To me this seems like kids petitioning to stop McDonalds from including toys with a Happy Meal.

Those of us that want to get credit cards should not be denied any free incentives that the credit card companies want to give.

I think by this point in their lives students should be responsible for their own financial choices, if they choose a certain credit card because it comes with a free shopping bag then I don’t see what the problem is.

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Credit card companies are not evil, they are not trying to prey on the weak minded, they are just trying to make money like any other business.

What students do with the cards after they are issued is not the credit card company’s problem.

Now it could be said that some students haven’t been educated on the proper use of credit cards; that is a very sad fact that the university could correct.

All of us have attended the mandatory freshman meetings on alcohol, drugs, and rape.

I think that a mandatory freshman program on financial responsibility would be much more useful than either of the other two programs and even if only a few people pay attention long enough to be responsible with credit then we would be taking a small step to never repeating the credit meltdown that plagues us today.