Debit, Prepaid Preferred In Managing College Student Spending

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It’s common knowledge that parents fret over the decisions their children make when faced with the new freedoms college has to offer. According to a recent MasterCard survey, one of the freedoms parents worry about most concerns how their kids manage their finances.

Nearly 65 percent of the 310 parents surveyed said they’re concerned about the money management skills of their college-bound children, with 40 percent believing their kids will run out of money within a month.

So what features allow parents to feel more at ease with their children’s finances? Text spending alerts and freezing access are two methods, the survey notes. Parents also prefer debit and prepaid cards, which prevent students from piling up debt. Student loans aside, that is.

In order to ease parents’ concerns, MasterCard and the International Student Identity Card Association (ISIC) have partnered up (http://pymnts.com/news/businesswire-feed/2012/august/21/mastercard-survey-finds-parents-of-college-freshmen-worried-about-their-childrens-ability-to-manage-money-20120821006008/) to create a card program that affords students “easy and secure ways to manage their money, track spending and purchase goods at discounted prices” from both brick-and-mortar and online sites.

Check out the following infographic to see even more data from the survey.