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Read our 2019 College Credit Card Report

Today the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) is releasing its 2019 report on college credit cards. The Credit Card Accountability, Responsibility, and Disclosure Act requires credit card issuers to submit agreements they make with colleges (and organizations affiliated with colleges) to the CFPB. It also requires the CFPB to submit a report that lists that information to Congress and make it available to the public. This is the CFPB’s eighth college credit card report and the tenth overall (the Federal Reserve Board published the first two).

Our 2019 report finds that the market for these kinds of college credit cards is getting smaller by all the metrics we track, continuing a general trend that dates back a decade. We also found that there are fewer issuers this year who are parties to college credit card agreements compared to last year and that agreements with alumni associations continue to make up the largest part of this market.

The CFPB is committed to transparency and making public data easy to access and use for anyone who’s interested. That’s why we consolidate all the data we receive every year into a single file that you can access. The report has an appendix that outlines exactly what’s in the dataset and how to use it. We encourage any interested members of the public to access the data directly to inform themselves on the state and history of this market.

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