Spring Break
Students who know more owe less to credit cards
Kira Hutchens
Issue date: 4/7/04 Section: News
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New research by a UA professor reveals interesting information about college students and credit card use.
Myria Allen, associate professor of communication, said she started to gain an interest in the use of credit cards by college students when a graduate assistant did research on a similar topic four years ago.
The graduate assistant discovered students with credit and financial problems could develop emotional anxieties, she said.
The first part of the research, Allen said, was interviewing 108 students from the UA. The main goal of the interviews was to discover whether students had talked to parents about financial situations.
A majority of the students, Allen said, had open communication with their parents about finance. However, students said they had little help with financial planning. Some important parts of saving, such as investment, students knew little about, Allen said.
An interview of 1,300 people from Louisiana, Kentucky, Missouri and Arkansas was the second part of the research, Allen said. The surveys were concerned with family communication about money and conflict that occurs within family about money.
According to the surveys college seniors have a lot more credit cards than college freshmen. College seniors have an average of nine credit cards, which Allen said is "way too many."
Students with one to three credit cards knew a lot more about credit and how to use it than students with more than three credit cards.
Some of the problems students have with finance, Allen said, are talking to their parents about it.
She also said students who have had conflict between parents about money had a different attitude about money than students whose parents did not have conflict.
Students whose parents had conflict thought of money as something associated with power and success, Allen said.
To help students with financial situations, Allen said she and her colleagues are making an interactive CD-Rom for high school students and parents.
Myria Allen, associate professor of communication, said she started to gain an interest in the use of credit cards by college students when a graduate assistant did research on a similar topic four years ago.
The graduate assistant discovered students with credit and financial problems could develop emotional anxieties, she said.
The first part of the research, Allen said, was interviewing 108 students from the UA. The main goal of the interviews was to discover whether students had talked to parents about financial situations.
A majority of the students, Allen said, had open communication with their parents about finance. However, students said they had little help with financial planning. Some important parts of saving, such as investment, students knew little about, Allen said.
An interview of 1,300 people from Louisiana, Kentucky, Missouri and Arkansas was the second part of the research, Allen said. The surveys were concerned with family communication about money and conflict that occurs within family about money.
According to the surveys college seniors have a lot more credit cards than college freshmen. College seniors have an average of nine credit cards, which Allen said is "way too many."
Students with one to three credit cards knew a lot more about credit and how to use it than students with more than three credit cards.
Some of the problems students have with finance, Allen said, are talking to their parents about it.
She also said students who have had conflict between parents about money had a different attitude about money than students whose parents did not have conflict.
Students whose parents had conflict thought of money as something associated with power and success, Allen said.
To help students with financial situations, Allen said she and her colleagues are making an interactive CD-Rom for high school students and parents.
