Bills.com Offers Course Guide for College Finances as Students Go Back To School

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
(Free-Press-Release.com) August 25, 2009 -- SAN MATEO, Calif., Aug. 19, 2009 – This school year, the passage of Credit Card Accountability, Responsibility and Disclosure Act will change the face of college debt -- and Bills.com offers a "syllabus" of six ways for students to gain money smarts along with a diploma.

Many college students build up tremendous amounts of debt. Between 2001 and 2007, student loan balances rose 18 percent to an average of $22,700 per borrower. In 2008, 84 percent of college undergraduates had at least one credit card, and students are carrying record-high balances -- an average $3,173 in 2008. More than one in five students (21 percent) had credit card balances between $3,000 and $7,000.

But this year marks a turning point in college-student debt: With the passage this year of the Credit Card Accountability, Responsibility and Disclosure Act, this is the last semester that credit card lenders will be able to solicit students in person and on campus to open credit cards. It is also the last semester in which credit card companies will be permitted to issue cards to applicants under age 21 without an adult co-signer or proof of adequate income.

For those heading to campus, Ethan Ewing, president of free online consumer portal Bills.com, offers this roster of college disciplines to help students obtain straight As in personal finance:

Read more at: http://www.bills.com/billscom-offers-course-guide-for-college-finances-as-students-go-back-to-school-press-release/

About Bills.com (www.bills.com)

Based in San Mateo, Calif., Bills.com (www.bills.com) is a free one-stop portal where consumers can educate themselves about complex personal finance issues and comparison shop for products and services including credit cards, debt consolidation, insurance, mortgages and other loans. Bills.com holds the No. 257 spot on the Inc. 500 list for 2008, and the No. 3 spot on Entrepreneur Magazine's Hot 100 list of the fastest-growing U.S. companies.

Bills.com and its sister companies, Freedom Debt Relief and Freedom Tax Relief, are wholly owned subsidiaries of Freedom Financial Network, LLC. The company has served more than 50,000 customers nationwide since 2002 while managing more than $1 billion in consumer debt. Its RSS feed is available at http://www.bills.com/news_releases/.

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