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Credit-card marketing on college campuses is out of control, and four in five students support regulations that would end free gifts for signing up and require companies to offer fair terms, a consumer group said in a new report.

A nationwide survey of college students conducted by the U.S. Public Interest Research Group Education Fund found that 76 percent of students have considered credit offers from on-campus tables offering free gifts ranging from T-shirts and food to iPods.

Of the 66 percent of students who have at least one credit card, 36 pay their balance every month, 34 percent carry a balance, and 30 percent report their parents pay the credit-card bill.

"From the survey, everybody got the sense that students feel betrayed by credit companies," said Neal Denardi, a UA political-science junior and Arizona student PIRG leader.

"They're enticed with free gifts, but they're not told the APR is introductory and not fixed. They're not told that the contract can be changed at any time. That makes it hard for students to really grasp what they're getting themselves into. We just want to clean up those deceptive tactics."

Such banking and credit industry groups as the American Bankers Association, have argued, including this month in testimony before a U.S. House subcommittee considering credit-card legislation, that regulation would result in higher prices for cardholders and that consumer education is a more effective strategy.

But students overwhelmingly support more regulation for credit-card companies when they target students to eliminate what they consider unfair practices, according to the survey, which interviewed more than 1,500 students at 40 colleges in 14 states, including the University of Arizona and Arizona State University.

The survey identified steep penalty fees and punitive interest rates as high as 36 percent as unfair practices cited by students. Other credit-card practices under investigation by Congress include changing the terms of credit cards for no reason, manipulating due dates month to month, applying payments only to consumers' lowest rate balances and "universal default," or raising rates on consumers in good standing because of late payments for unrelated bills.

Nationally, 74 percent of students support the marketing of "fair" credit cards only, while 67 percent of students support a prohibition on the sale or sharing of student information with credit companies (which the UA does not do), 46 percent think there should be a limited number of days that credit companies are allowed to be on campus, and 36 percent support a ban on free gifts.

Students say credit-card companies see them as easy marks and purposefully attempt to trap students in debt as soon as they're living on their own. UA senior Zelida Hernandez, 21, said she also has a credit card she signed up for at a table on campus for a free gift.

"They convinced me that I'd be able to use it to buy all my books, but they didn't disclose that they would raise my rates," she said. "When you're a freshman, you're not aware. Students don't keep interest rates in mind; they don't keep fees in mind."

Felisia Tagaban, a campus minister who graduated from the UA in 2002, said she was approached by credit companies near the beginning of her freshman year, a time when she knew little about credit or debt.

"By the time I was a junior, I was $5,000 over my head," she said. Months of working 60 hours a week between two jobs got her out of debt and taught her plenty of lessons.

"I would have done better if I knew about the annual percentage rate," she said. "Once I got in over my head, I wish I would have known I had the option to negotiate for that to be lowered. The companies definitely rely heavily on the ignorance of young students and use a lot of gimmicks."

Average balance for students with credit-card debt:

$2,623

Seniors

$2,459

Juniors

$1,896

Sophomores

$1,301

Freshmen

Source: U.S. Public Interest Research Group survey