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I am calling because I have a freshman daughter new to college, and my husband and I recently

found out that she opened a credit card.

She knows we're against that.

My husband tossed around the idea of kind of giving her an ultimatum,

excuse me, an ultimatum that if she doesn't close it,

we will not provide her the funds from her 529. And I'm just curious, your thoughts on that.

We haven't talked to her about that yet, but we're just trying to figure out how to navigate it.

How did you find out about the credit card?

Well, when she was home on Thanksgiving break, she goes to a college fairly close to home.

I saw it in her wallet.

How do you see it in a wallet without opening said wallet?

She has like a little, it's like a thing attached to her lanyard.

Okay.

She has her student ID in it and like a thing attached to her lanyard. Oh, okay.

She has her student ID in it, and then her debit card, and then I – And then you have – she doesn't know that you know at this point. She does know, because I asked her about it. Okay. Did she get defensive? Was she like, well, here's why I did this? Not really. I mean, she didn't get defensive. She was kind of open at first, but then didn't really want to tell me what the balance was on it.

Oh. Was there an agreement? Hey, we're going to pay for school, but you have to go completely debt-free. You're not going to go into debt. You're not going to open a credit card. What was the conversation like?

Well, I don't feel like we ever had a specific conversation, but as she turned 18, I do recall, like, seeing, you know, credit card offers come in the mail and just told her, kind of like,

please don't ever open one.

Please don't open one.

I mean, I just, she knows we're against it.

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