Students explain their lack of credit card use

Millennials are accused of killing chain restaurants and department stores, and are now are being called "a threat to credit cards."

Traditionally, a credit card is how students paid for pizza and textbooks. Credit card vendors would sit on campuses on the first day of arrival to give away free t-shirts and college gear to get people to sign up. But new research found only one in three college students have credit cards. Action 2 News went to UW-Green Bay check if it rang true for students—and the stat checked out.

Jacob Tucker just finished his degree in computer science and say—in all four years, he’s never touched the plastic, “but it’s on my to-do list,” he told us.

Ashleigh Henrickson says she was put on her dad’s credit card years ago and now has her own, but dad makes sure it gets paid off every month, and it’s really just to build credit for when she gets an apartment.

"Credit cards? I'm afraid of spending way too much, so I gotta steer away from them,” Nicholas Livingston said.

Millennial college students have been warned about credit cards.

Chris Stammer says, "We're kind of told and scared away from them, because there are a lot of dangers that come along with them."

"I mean you see a lot of people kind of get trapped in paying high interest on something that they don't really need,” said Greg Shimkus.

The confusion of changing interest rates, hidden fees and fine print agreements are all deterrents.

"I don't really want to have to worry about paying off a credit card and I don't really know, the whole thing is kind of complicated honestly,” said Emily Macco.

"It's definitely not something we're taught really in school so I'm thankful my mom kind of took me through that process,” said Ryan Ramminger.

Liddy Di Valerio says, "I understand that building credit is important, but I never really thought about it as far as like something that I wanted to get. Eventually I'll have to get one obviously, but right now I'm just using a debit card."

So are millennials killing off the credit card industry, and whose fault is it anyway?

Amberlee Jorgenson just graduated with her degree in psychology, and said, "We're reacting to poor choices of the past."

"I don't think we're kind of killing off the credit cards. I guess we're just more cautious with our spending,” said Livingston.

Joseph Hamilton sums it up like this: "I'm not really too fond of the stereotypes that millennials get, especially when it comes to killing businesses. A lot of us are making businesses, revolutionizing the way that things are done. People just don't like the way things are changing."