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July 24, 2006

Credit Card Ownership and Behavior Among Traditional-Age Undergraduates, 2003-04

The study shows little variation in credit card ownership by students’ family income (see Table 1). The only minor difference is that students with family incomes of $80,000 or more were slightly more likely to own a credit card than those with incomes of less than $40,000 (58 percent versus 54 percent, respectively). The likelihood of owning a credit card did increase as students progressed through their academic careers. Forty-three percent of first-year undergraduates owned credit cards, compared with 74 percent of fourth- and fifth-year students. Further, students became more likely to hold multiple cards as they advanced through college. In the first year of college, only 8 percent of all undergraduates owned three or more cards. By the fourth or fifth year, 24 percent of students held that many cards.

Posted by Gary Holden at July 24, 2006 4:43 AM