Careless students find debt
load harder than course load
By Kathleen Lynn
Knight-Ridder Newspapers
Dana Sabio, a 20-year-old in
Mahwah, N.J., wants a credit card. “I
think
it’s good to have one, to build a
credit history,” she said. But 19-year
old Seleene Lewis of Teaneck, N.J., a
19-year-old, has dumped her plastic:
“I got Discover, Master Card, and Visa
my freshman year. I went crazy.”
Lewis said she ran up bills of $1,500
for clothing, spring break vacations,
and “nonsense,” and is still paying off
the debts. Sabio and Lewis show the
potential - and the risk - of college
students having credit cards.
Nationwide, about two-thirds of
all college students have credit cards,
and about a quarter have four or more
cards, according to a survey by Nellie
Mae, the student-loan provider. Most
handle plastic responsibly, said Diane
Saunders, a spokeswoman for Nellie
Mae. The average student credit card
debt is about $5OO, and a greater
percentage of students than adults pay
off their cards every month, she said.
Only 40 percent of credit card
holders pay off the bill every month,
but 59 percent of college students do,
Master Card spokeswoman Charlotte
Newton said. “But the one caveat to
that is what we’re seeing is a greater
percentage of students borrowing at
higher levels,” Saunders said.
Still, some young people
graduate with crippling credit card
debt - $5,000 or more is not unheard
of, Saunders said. She said that in
1998, 14 percent of undergraduates
had credit card debt between $3,000
and $7,000 by the time they finished
school, compared with 7 percent the
year before.
“They turn 18 and they’re handed
a piece of plastic that’s an important
financial tool and a major
responsibility without understanding
how to use it well, without
understanding what the consequences
are if you don’t use it well,” said Gerri
Detweiler, author of “The Ultimate
Credit Handbook.” “The parents I talk
to are shocked,” Detweiler said.
“Their kids get credit easier than they
do.”
Massive Allyn Fest party
puzzles police in Akron
By Terry Shropshire and Debbie
Murphy
The Buchtelite
The University of Akron
The Akron Police Department
thought they had a handle on couch
burning and bottle-hurling parties at
the University of Akron. But they
were grossly unprepared to handle
the mass of students that swarmed
Allyn Street for a massive
celebration on the night of September
19.
Police converged on the scene,
armed with riot control gear and
chemical agents to thwart a defiant
crowd that, initially, refused to leave.
Called Allyn Fest, it is believed to
be the third annual party to
commemorate the beginning of the
school year.
But the party, which started
about 10:30 p.m., quickly raged out
of control when an estimated 1,000
students spilled into the streets and
set couches and other items on fire,
police officials said. “It was a large,
unruly crowd,” said Police Captain
Ron Black. “We got to the scene and
several couches were on fire and
students were running around the
streets. We had to dispatch chemical
agents to disperse the crowds.”
Black said the crowds became
more belligerent when police arrived
on the scene to break up the parties.
Students began throwing rocks,
stones, bottles and other items at
police and firefighters. One firetruck
windshield was smashed by rock
wielding partiers.
Police then dispatched the first
round of tear gas, which prompted
students and others to congregate a
few streets over and begin again. So
much tear gas was unleashed,
In response, some colleges -
including William Paterson
University in Wayne, N.J. - have
banned credit card marketers from
campus. “Students were getting
themselves into trouble,” said Steve
Bolyai, vice president for
administration and finance at William
Paterson. “We felt we didn’t want to
encourage that.”
But financial educators say that
used responsibly, credit cards can help
students. The cards usually have more
lenient income standards and lower
credit limits-$5OO or $l,OOO. “It’s a
perfect opportunity for students to
build a good credit record, which will
benefit them tremendously once they
get out of school,” Detweiler said.
In fact, if they wait until after
graduation, young people may find it
more difficult to get a credit card
because their entry-level salaries may
not meet the income standards that
credit card issuers apply to working
adults, said Barbara O’Neill, a
financial educator with Rutgers
Cooperative Extension in Sussex
County, New Jersey.
Detweiler said students with no
steady income can get a credit card
as long as they have a clean credit
record. For adults, she said, minimum
income requirements range from
$15,000 - for a card with a high
interest rate and a low credit limit - to
$60,000 for certain gold cards. These
are general guidelines, and each credit
card issuer sets its own income and
credit-history standards.
Detweiler recommends that to
build a good credit record, students
wait until their junior or senior year
to get a card, to get only one, and to
use it carefully and pay it off on time
every month.
Eric Weil, president of Strategic
Marketing Communications Inc. in
Ridgewood, N.J., which specializes in
collegiate marketing, surveys students
regularly. He says student loans are a
much heavier burden for most college
graduates than credit card debt.
“The No. 1 reason why kids
apply for a credit card is to establish
a credit history,” Weil said. So why,
he asks, would they then mess up their
credit records by acting irresponsibly?
students said, that clouds of it could
be seen and tasted three blocks away.
Student residents of Kling Street
reported that the police threw tear
gas cans onto their front lawn and
porch, sending the smoke swarming
throughout the house. One student,
Mark Galinas, said that a gas can hit
him in the shoulder as he ran into
the house. Other students said that
the police continued to disperse the
tear gas during the night, even after
the crowd diminished.
Although there was plenty of
vandalism, Black said no one was
reportedly injured and no private
property incurred serious damage.
Black said the party scene was
reminiscent of the famous May Day
parties on Kathryn’s Place just south
of campus.
May Day, which takes place on
the last regular school day, had
generated national headlines earlier
this decade because of the large, out
of control crowd. But unlike May
Day, Allyn Fest has no known time
or date, leaving police stumped on
how to control it in the future.
“We’re a little lost on this one.
We can control May Day because we
know when it’s going to happen and
where it will take place,” he said.
“We’ re not sure if the so-called Allyn
Fest is an annual party, or whether it
takes place on the 3rd Saturday of
September or when. We just don’t
have a good grasp on this one at all.”
Students found out about the
party from flyers that were
distributed all over campus earlier in
the week. It’s not only the party but
the size of it that concerns police.
“We’ve had other problems before
[with Allyn Fest],” Black said, “but
nothing of this magnitude before.”
National Campus News
1 Thursday, October /, 1998 The Behrend College Beacon - Page 5
Issuing credit cards to students is
“investing in the future,” said Joseph
Stroop, a spokesman for Associates
First Capital Corp. in Dallas, which
issues both Visa and Master Card
credit cards to students nationwide.
He said the company wants to issue a
student’s first credit card in hopes of
building a relationship that will last
for years.
Given the opportunities for
credit, it’s not hard to find students
facing significant debt. Tamika
Hamer of Newark, 22, damaged her
credit rating by charging $ 1,000 - the
limit on her credit card - during her
freshman year at Ramapo. She has
been unable to pay off the debt, and
knows it will hurt her when she
graduates and wants to finance a car.
“It’s not a really good idea to have
credit cards in college,” she said.
Lizbeth Mendez of Hackensack,
N.J., graduated college in May with
$5,000 on her credit cards. That
amount of debt, she said, is typical
among her friends. What did she
charge on the card? Well, there was
clothing, eating out, and... “I really
don’t know. I can’t show what I got
for that amount of money.” Now
Mendez, who has a business degree,
is working at a hotel and trying to pay
off the debt on her four cards.
A lot of students think they will
be able to pay off their debt once they
start working. But recent graduates
people are often squeezed between
high expenses - such as rent, car
payments, and repaying student loans
- and low entry-level salaries. In fact,
Alan Blair, credit manager of Nellie
Mae, estimates that between average
debt and living expenses, recent
graduates in the Northeast would need
an income of $38,512 - more than
most could hope to earn. The average
starting salary of a college graduate
is about $24,000, Nellie Mae said.
Paul Richard of the National
Center for Financial Education
applauds the colleges that have kicked
credit card marketers off campus.
“No one should be approved for a
credit card who doesn’t have a full
time income,” Richard said.
This is the first year Ramapo
administrators have allowed credit
Teen-Age girls having their
By Mark Angeles
Knight-Ridder Newspapers
Patty Sullivan is going back to
school with new books, new clothes -
and new breasts.
Sullivan, 19, is one of an
increasing number of teen-agers who
have had their breasts surgically
enlarged.
While disturbing to some, the
cosmetic procedure has its defenders,
including the doctors who perform
them and the satisfied customers who
receive them.
“I’ve wanted them since I was 13
years old,” said Sullivan, who said she
stopped developing naturally when
she was 15. Last month, she paid to
have her breasts enlarged by two full
cup sizes, to a modest 34C. Before the
procedure, “a Miracle Bra was my
best friend,” said the waitress and
college student who has lived on her
own since January.
Sullivan didn’t consult her
parents before having the implants
and she paid the $6,000 cost herself,
with money she’d been saving for
years.
“Why do girls go on diets, and
why do they lie on the beach? Because
they want to be thin and want to be
tanned,” she said during a break from
her job as a waitress at Grotto’s Pizza
in Rehoboth Beach, Del. "Well, girls
with small chests can’t do anything
to make their breasts grow.”
Enter the man Cosmopolitan
magazine has called “The Body Doc.”
Dr. Kirk Brandow, who did Sullivan’s
breast augmentation, is a Philadelphia
area plastic surgeon who has
performed the procedure on patients
as young as 17. (Girls under 18 must
be accompanied by a parent.)
Brandow doesn’t accept every
patient seeking breast augmentation
- he rejects 15 to 20 percent of the
women who want the procedure.
Many of these are teens.
To determine whether a woman
card marketers to set up tables on
campus. They decided it was unfair
to open the door to other vendors, but
not to credit card companies.
Moreover, with credit cards being
marketed through the mail, at stores,
and elsewhere, they realized they
couldn’t prevent the students from
getting cards.
“We’re supposed to be teaching
students to make intelligent choices,”
said Miki Cammarata, director of the
student center at Ramapo. “We need
to give them the opportunity to decide
whether they can handle credit.”
Cammarata said Ramapo is
considering requiring credit card
companies to offer more financial
education before issuing cards to
students. The companies’ brochures
already caution students to use credit
wisely, and Master Card recently
announced a more ambitious effort to
educate students and parents, working
with an organization called College
Parents of America.
Detweiler is a strong advocate of
education about credit. Many students
don’t realize that late payments and
other credit crimes stay in credit
bureaus’ records for seven years -
tripping up efforts to get that first car,
job, or apartment. “I’ve had students
ask me, 'ls it OK to pay my Visa bill
with my MasterCard?’ “ said Robert
Bugai, president of College
Marketing Intelligence in North
Arlington, N.J.
Barbara O’Neill and others say
the financial education should start in
high school. In fact, financial
education was recently added to New
Jersey’s high school core curriculum
standards. For now, much of the
credit education is up to parents. They
can’t stop their 18-year-olds from
getting credit cards, but they can talk
to them about how to budget, how to
find the best credit card deals, and
why it’s a bad idea to charge more
than they can pay off every month.
“If you’re not learning it at home
and you’re not learning it at school,”
said O’Neill, “in some cases you’re
going to learn in the school of hard
knocks, unfortunately.”
is a good candidate for the surgery,
Brandow and at least one other staff
member interviews each prospective
patient.
Who gets rejected?
“A girl may come in and tell me
her boyfriend wants her breasts to be
bigger,” said Brandow. “That’s not the
right reason to get them done.”
Brandow estimates that 10 to 15
percent of the 150 or so breast
I’ve wanted them since I
was 13 years old
Patty Sullivan, 19-year-old breast implant
recipient
enhancements he performs each year
are for patients 18 or younger, a
phenomenon that has been possible
in part because of changes in the way
implant surgery is done.
“Four years ago, five years ago,
I don’t think I would have agreed to
do this,” said Brandow, who minored
in art as an undergraduate at Colgate
University and considers himself an
artist as well as a surgeon. “Back then,
implants were made of silicone,
incisions were made under the breast,
there was scarring, there were
hardness problems, loss of sensation,
leaking...
“Technology and medical
advancements have made this a much
safer procedure.”
Today, implants are filled with a
harmless saline solution. The
incisions through which the implants
are inserted are made in the armpit or
belly button, eliminating breast scars.
And the implants are positioned
under, instead of on top of the pectoral
muscle, which not only results in a
more natural appearance but also
preserves the option of breast-feeding
an infant, Brandow said.
Brandow predicts that the
decreased risks associated with breast
Jury awards $ 1 million
each to professors forced
to resign over race
By Joseph R. Daughen And Jim
Smith
Knight-Ridder Newspapers
PHILADELPHIA - Two
former professors at Cheyney
University near Philadelphia have
been awarded more than $1 million
each after a federal jury found the
historically black school had
discriminated against them
because they are white.
At a trial before U.S. District
Judge Robert F. Kelly, Fred
Centner, 63, and Robert Stevenson,
68, said they were harassed and
forced to resign after they
complained that their department
had embarked on a plan to dismiss
white male teachers and replace
them with African-Americans.
Both men, who live in West
Chester*! Pa., were longtime
professors in the science and allied
health department In fall 1991,
they said, their department began
a campaign to “systematically
dismiss Caucasian male
professors.”
The department then had
eight teachers, five white males, an
Asian female and two black males,
including Eugene Jones, the
chairiuan. Overall, whites made up
shout 35 percent of Cheyney’s 96-
member faculty, with blacks and
other minorities accounting for 65
percent
Slightly more than 1,000
students, 99 percent of them
African-American, are enrolled at
Cheyney, a 160-year-old taxpayer
supported school about 25 miles
west of Philadelphia.
Mark Frost and Gregg Zeff,
attorneys for the professors,
argued that the two men were
subjected to malicious evaluations
of their work and phony
accusations of sexual harassment
anddiscriminadonagainst black
students. Centner, a teacher of
physics at- Cheyney since
September 1963, and Stevenson, an
organic-chemistry instructor since
September 1969, were “well
respected professors” until they
complained of racial hiring
breasts surgically enlarged
enhancement could make it as
common as nose jobs, which are
almost a rite of passage for upper
middle-class girls.
Not all plastic surgeons endorse
breast enhancement for such young
women. “It’s reasonable to do these
sorts of procedures on someone in
their 205,” said Dr. Amit Mitra,
chairman of the plastic surgery
department at Temple University
Hospital. “Any younger than that,
you’re in a gray zone, because that
person may not have finished
growing, and may have a growth
spurt that could include a change in
breast size.”
Mitra also pointed out there are
no long-term studies on the effects
of saline implants. The old silicone
implants obscured breast tissue in
mammogram tests, and while saline
versions allow for clearer viewing,
they still make it harder to detect
early signs of breast cancer.
Dr. George P. Zavitsanos, a
plastic surgeon at the Aesthetic
Health Care Center in Philadelphia,
questions whether a teen-ager
comprehends the long-term
consequences
augmentation
“It behooves you to be very
critical when an individual under 20
says she wants breast implants,” said
Zavitsanos. “This is a lifelong
decision.”
First, there is a period of
adjustment - both physical and
emotional - after the breasts are
enlarged. Then, to maintain them,
replacement may be necessary in as
little as 10 years, Zavitsanos said.
Mental-health professionals are
even more skeptical about the
appropriateness of breast
enhancement for teens. A psychiatrist
at the University of Pennsylvania
believes the pressure to be attractive
has increased for young women.
“Teen-agers nowadays seem to
have a fear that if they’re not
practices, they said.
Gentner testified that Jones
described Cheyney as “black on the
outside and white on the inside”
because more than a third of the
faculty was white. He said Jones also
complained that “the white
bastards” would not let him hire an
African-American and said he was
determined “not to hire a white
one.” After complaining about
Jones’ refusal to hire any whites for
three vacancies, Gentner and
Stevenson said, other Cheyney
officials joined the harassment they
said they suffered.
For more than a year, they said,
they were subjected to unfounded
accusations about their conduct,
their schedules were changed and
they were denied normal work
privileges. Finally, they said,
“conditions of discrimination”
became “so intolerable” they were
forced to resign in December 1992.
They received a year’s pay and left
in January 1994.
The jury included six women,
including one African-American,
and two white men. Dealing with
another aspect of the case, an earlier
jury had returned a verdict in favor
of Gentner and Stevenson, and Kelly
set the award in that aspect at
$150,000 each. The jury this week
added $1,350,466 to Gentner’s
award and $1,127,784 to
Stevenson’s.
Attorney Steven K. Ludwig,
representing Cheyney, said the
school has asked Kelly to trim the
amounts to $200,000 each. The Civil
Rights Act under which the two
professors brought their suit sets a
$200,000 cap on such awards
because Cheyney is considered a
small employer, said Ludwig. The
plaintiffs sought, but failed, to have
the State System of Higher
Education - which would have
qualified as a large employer - made
p defendant
Even if the judge trims the
award, said Ludwig, Cheyney still
could appeal to have the entire
verdict overturned. He said no
decision has been reached on what
action to take.
completely successful, they’ll be
failures,” said Dr. Anthony Rostain,
associate professor of psychiatry at the
University of Pennsylvania. “If you’re
fine in four out of five categories, then
you strive to be fine in five out of five
categories.”
But Dr. Ellen Sholevar, an
adolescent psychiatrist at Temple
University Health Sciences Center,
says teens are simply responding to the
message that big breasts are better that
is so pervasive in American society.
She blames the media for creating
unrealistic models of beauty that
overwhelm impressionable young
women.
“They watch television and read
magazines, such as Philadelphia
magazine, that have numerous pictures
of scantily clad women in ads for
plastic surgeons who are saying, ‘lf
your body isn’t perfect, we can make
it so.’
“Our society is heavily invested
in large breasts. Why should teens be
immune?”
Clearly they aren’t. One 18-year
old patient of Brandow’s said she used
to ciy whenever she had to try on
bathing suits or bras. She says breast
implants changed her life. “Before I
go to the beach, I now try on all these
bathing suits, because I feel so much
better about myself,” said the teen,
who noted that she has a steady
boyfriend and didn’t have the
operation to attract men.
breast
The girl's mother tried to talk her
out of the surgery.
“I told her that it’s not important
to have big breasts, but these girls are
determined nowadays to get them no
matter what,” said the mother, who,
like her daughter, requested
anonymity.
The girl - with the help of her
mom - took out a small loan to pay for
the $6,000 procedure. And mother and
daughter agreed to keep the operation
a secret from her father.