Most students have enough problems without having to worry about a credit card. There are work schedules to keep on task, an active social life to engineer, family members to assure you’re still sane and even, during those passing moments at three in the morning when you begin to panic, grades to consider.

So why would anyone bother with the instant headache that a credit card is sure to provide? With that small, pretty-colored, rectangular piece of magnetically coded plastic, you can get in deep over your head faster than Calista Flockhart diving into a grain bin.

The problem with the credit card is it allows a college student to do the same thing to his financial situation as he might do to his body. Sure, rapid and frequent consumption of alcohol and a multi-pack-a-day habit that requires one to smoke for two-thirds of one’s waking hours is bad for one’s health, but eventually those habits will recede as one settles down, and the body finally will get a chance to recuperate.

That is if you don’t wake up one morning and find that your liver has become tired of your Christian Slater-like excesses and has left your body for that of a right-wing Christian.

But for the most part, your body will heal after you’ve been through your crazy, beer-soaked invulnerable days.

However, your bank account will not. I think the major problem with the average college student is that he treats his money like it is a part of him. The fact is it’s not. It may represent you and may control what you can say, what you can do, and who you can murder, but it’s not going to react the way your body will.

If some dude hurts his credit line by deciding he needs a new SUV and an overly-attractive girlfriend, his financial situation will not improve over time.

The fact that he spent $200 on a two-hour shopping spree for his woman and then bought her dinner at Aunt Maude’s that night right before his new Jeep broke down on Interstate 35 at midnight is not going to be healed by laying off the plastic for a couple of days. That’s a $500 credit card binge that’s going to require a visit to the piper at some point.

And that’s an example that involves buying things that actually make a semblance of sense. Most students I know who start to get swallowed up by credit card debt have nothing to show for it.

“So, what did you buy with that $1,500 debt of yours? All you’ve got in your place is a futon and a computer.”

“Nothing, really.”

“Did you have a woman?”

“No.”

“Did you spend a semester completely adrift in half-consciousness?”

“No.”

“Then what do you have, numbskull?”

“A really kick-ass computer. Wanna play ‘NBA Live ’99?’ We have to hurry, my machine gets repossessed in like 15 minutes. They’re going to let me keep the futon, though.”

It’s just too freaking easy to let college students pay without cash. They’ll do it for the same reason they do everything else that no one over 35 understands: We’ve got to make our own mistakes.

Usually, I’m the first to agree with that sentiment. It’s very difficult to learn things from others when the best teacher is in nearly every case yourself. For that reason, I try not to look down on those who use the evil tools of the capitalist devil.

Me, I stick to bank cards that can work as credit cards because instead of charging expenses, they just pull money from my back account to cover them. I get all the convenience of using a credit card, but if I spend too much, I don’t give up my first-born son, I’m just broke. If I really need money, I just hole myself away from the world and hide until my next check comes and I can rejoin the monetary race.

So what can we do about these heinous cards? First of all, don’t sign up for one until you absolutely must, and then wait three months and see if you still absolutely must have one. Then don’t get one for a year if you still want it. Just keep putting it off. Believe me, it works.

Secondly, the university should not be allowing credit card solicitors to set up shop around the campus. It’s hard enough to turn away from the credit temptation, but how am I supposed to resist when some guy with an innocent-looking clipboard is waving a John Belushi shirt in my face? Seriously, that kind of choice is worse than being the executioner for Madonna and Cher and having only one rope.

There’s no reason why I shouldn’t be able to walk across campus without some huckster trying to move credit cards with interest rates of 18 percent or more offering me free crap.

And there is no reason why VISA should have my university-housing phone number so that they can wake me up at 8 a.m. on a Monday.

Iowa State should join what is becoming a common trend in the wake of a slew of stories about credit card debt-ridden college students. The university should ban credit card solicitors from campus.

Perhaps what they save in corporate kickbacks will be made up in the amount of students who will have enough money to pay their U-Bills. The friendly folks at the Treasurer’s Office can still count on mine to be a week late, though, in case they’re interested.

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David Roepke is a junior in journalism and mass communications from Aurora, Iowa. He is head news editor of the Daily.