A Senate bill to restrict credit card solicitations to students on college campuses passed the House 92-2 on Thursday.

Speaker Pro Tempore Lois DeBerry, a Memphis Democrat, pushed for a revival of a bill that failed in the Senate education committee last week. A compromise amendment was added to the bill last week, which led to the committee passing the measure.

The original bill banned all solicitations of credit card companies on university grounds or through student organizations.  The revisions reduce the restrictions to:

• Credit card solicitations can only occur during athletic event days
• Credit card companies can't "knowingly" use incentives get students to sign up
• Bill only applicable to the UT system and state Board of Regents system (this excludes private colleges)
• Bill applicable to existing contracts between UT and credit card companies after they expire

Currently, UT holds a seven-year contract with Chase Bank USA, which pays UT $1.4 million per year. It was signed in February 2006 and will remain in effect, according to the revised senate bill restrictions. 

UT students have mixed responses to the bill. 

"I myself can not even pay my credit card bills," Todd Stoglin, a junior in geography, said. "I haven't been able to do this in over a year now and the interest has grown outrageously. My interest rate on one of the cards now is at 29.5."

Stephen Carpenter, a senior in English, said, "If this is meant to keep students away from credit cards all together then it's a horrible ideaIf this is meant to keep students away from credit cards all together then it's a horrible idea -Stephen Carpenter, UT student.  It takes 7 years to build up a solid credit history and credit cards are easily the best way to do this.  Also credit cards if used correctly will save students quite a bit of money on things like gas if its a card issued by a gas company like Shell, Exxon, et cetera. I think it would be more important to educate college students about credit than it would be to just try and keep them away from it all together."

Eric Haley, Roxanne Hovland and Mariea Hoy coauthored a study titled "Complusive Buying and Credit Card Usage Among College Students" in 2002.  Their study states, "The combination of student and credit card debt leaves typical students $20,000 in total debt by graduation." 

Haley, an associate professor in advertising, emphasizes the importance of educating college students. 

"Our students are woefully uneducated about financial matters as are most Americans," he said. College students need to learn how to manage credit cards.  They are essential life tools these days.  So I would hope any effort to deal with debt issues would include education about money matters, starting in high school, so that kids understand what saving means and the difference between investments and expenditures."