White Paper Topic: Credit Card Debt

I think that this is an important topic for young adults to understand the repercussion of. Credit card debt can be extremely stressful, and affect choices later in life. Often people with bad credit card debt have difficulties buying a car or a house later in life. I think it would be beneficial for high school kids to take a course in personal finances. I took a personal finance class as a requirement for my major. It was really informative talking about investing in stocks, bonds, mutual funds, 401 K options, and retirement. I learned the importance of investing early in 401 K and stock options so that I can maximize the amount. So many of these things are really important for young adults to learn about so that they can make positive decisions about their finances. I think credit card companies could require first time card holders under 25 to take a class about how the card works, and the charges that will occur for late payments. Colleges could require students to obtain a certification from a personal finance class to graduate. Many young people do not understand the ramifications of their credit card debt until the debt load becomes unmanageable. Even very skilled lawyers cannot comprehend the contracts in fine print on credit cards. It would be difficult to get credit cards to do this since their profits come from people who make late payments, and pay the minimum amount each month. I agree that the paper should be targeted to young generations or people in severe credit debt. The paper could also be directed to parents who have teenagers and college aged kids. People with credit card need to understand how credit score determine purchasing power later.

Research options

www,Suzy-Orman.com

www.My FICO.com

http://money.cnn.com/pf/

http://www.forbes.com/finance/