After five years, senior psychology major Claudia Gonzalez is still paying off a maxed out credit card she signed up for during her freshman year of college.

Gonzalez tried to buy a bus pass to travel home for the summer after her freshman year at TCU when her credit card was denied.

“I had just made a payment and I’d thought I would be fine, but the payment hadn’t gone through yet so I was declined and I freaked out,” she said.

Gonzalez had applied for a credit card with Bank of America in the fall of her freshman year at a career fair that had been set up on campus. After asking the bank representatives a couple of questions, Gonzalez signed up for her first checking and savings account and a credit card for free. The credit card had no interest for the first year as long as payments were met, and a $700 credit limit.

By the spring of that year, Gonzalez said she had already maxed out the limit on the card. She had used the card on bus passes and flights to and from home in McAllen, Christmas presents and emergencies. But after missing the first payment, she started accumulating interest.

According to Nellie Mae, a student loan company, nearly 60 percent of college freshmen max out their credit cards by the end of their freshman year.

A study completed in 2009 by Sallie Mae’s National Study of Usage Rates and Trends showed that 91 percent of undergraduates have at least one credit card, with most students having four or more cards. The number of students owning credit cards has gone up 76 percent since 2004.

Gonzalez is part of the 45 percent of college students who have credit card debt. According to the same study, the typical graduating senior’s credit debt totals up to $4,100.

With expenses to pay such as rent, car payments, gas, groceries and other bills, Gonzalez said she usually paid the $15 minimum each month to pay off her credit card. However, she finds herself in a cycle of using her card again after she pays it off a little.

“I get to a point where my balance is $600 but then something always comes up,” she said. “I need to use it for gas to go home or something. I’m still using it once a month or once every two months.”

Gonzalez said she never really thought through the consequences of having a credit card when she first signed up and still did not know what the interest rate on her card was.

According to the Sallie Mae survey from 2009, more than 70 percent of students had no idea what their interest rate is.

The Arizona Pathways to Life Success project performed two studies in which they explored how college students developed financial knowledge, beliefs and attitudes. A study was done before the recession of 2008 and after. The study’s results showed that undergraduates behaved less financially responsible after the recession.

Students were not spending within budgets, tracking monthly expenses or saving money each month. However, the amount of students still paying their credit cards in full each month was only a 1 percent change in difference after the recession.

Since her freshman year, Gonzalez no longer sees banks setting up booths on campus, as a result of the Credit Card Act of 2009. The act’s purpose was to establish fair practices between consumers and credit card companies.

One provision of the bill required banks to provide a reason for coming to college campuses and outlawed bribery of gifts and/or coupons in exchange for signing up for credit cards. Another provision limits anyone under the age of 21 from being issued a credit card without a co-signer who is 21 or older.

According to CreditDonkey, a credit card comparison website, there could be benefits to starting a credit card while in college. If students kept up with their payments, they could have a headstart on establishing good credit by the time they graduated. Good credit would be helpful when the time came to buy a car or house. Furthermore, many credit card companies offered students cards with low interest and no annual fees.

Gonzalez said she saw her experience with credit card debt as a learning process.

“If I could do it all over again, I would still sign up for a card,” she said. “I’d rather learn from experience early on in my college career, rather than later in life when I have even more bills to pay.”

Gonzalez said she did not regret signing up for a credit card, but she wanted to be more financially responsible about it.