The U.S. Public Interest Research Group (PIRG) has issued a report about banks and their partnerships with college campuses. The title of the report is “The Campus Debit Card Trap: Are Bank Partnerships Fair to Students.”
“Banks and other financial firms are taking advantage of a variety of opportunities to form partnerships with colleges and universities to produce campus student ID cards and to offer student aid disbursements on debit or prepaid cards,” reads the first lines of the report’s “Summary and Key Findings.”
Another line in the 40-page report states: “PIRG has identified almost 900 card partnerships between colleges and banks or other financial firms at schools with over 9 million students.” That means about 42% of all students nationwide have the opportunity to participate in such a program.
The report goes on to state that “Industry leading banks and financial firms tout that upwards of 70%-80% of students use their cards after a few years of marketing. U.S. PIRG has identified that 32 of the 50 largest public four-year universities, 26 of the largest 50 community colleges, and six of the largest 20 private not-for-profit schools had debit or prepaid card contracts with a bank or a financial firm.”
The complete report in a pdf format can be viewed here. ![[end]](/resources/bullet/cr80news-4.gif)
