Before moving on to a more specific discussion of the sociological perspective on the problems associated with credit cards, one more example of the way the credit card industry has created problems for people would be useful: the increasing effort by credit card firms to lure students into possessing their own credit cards. The over 9 mil lion college students (of which 5.6 million are in school on a full-time basis) represent a huge and lucrative market for credit card compa nies. According to one estimate, about 82% of full-time college stu dents now have credit cards. 10 The number of undergraduates with credit cards increased by 37% between 1988 and 1990]1 The credit card companies have been aggressively targeting this population not
