DANA BURNETT, VICE PRESIDENT OF STUDENT AFFAIRS, TESTIFIES TO GENERAL ASSEMBLY JOINT COMMITTEE ON CREDIT CARD DEBT

Dana Burnett, Old Dominion University's vice president of student affairs, testified Sept. 29 in front of a General Assembly joint subcommittee in Roanoke on the issue of heavy credit card debt among college students.

"It's most addictive to them," Burnett told the subcommittee, according to an article in today's Richmond Times-Dispatch. "In addition to feeling themselves invincible, these kinds of students don't have the term 'delayed gratification' in their vocabulary."

According to the article, the subcommittee first took up the issue of credit card debt this year, trying to determine how it affects minority and poor students. Committee members said they quickly discovered the issue to be gender and race blind and set about to find ways to curb the use of credit cards.

Burnett said he discovered recently it was a problem at Old Dominion when he met several students with up to 10 credit cards and $8,000 of debt.