Would ending ban cause colleges to team up with credit card companies?

The state would no longer ban colleges from getting into business with credit card companies to market to their students under a bill being considered in the House.

The bill strikes language prohibiting colleges and universities from "enter[ing] into any agreement to market credit cards to undergraduate students."

But would that change much? Some experts say no.

Tough new federal rules now regulate companies' interactions with college students.

They prevent them from offering free T-shirts, pizzas, or other gifts for opening accounts. They require people under age 21 to have a co-signer or show that they are able to make payments. They demand that universities make public their once-secret agreements with credit card companies.

In short, the state's language, enacted in 2007, "is being superseded by federal law," said Tricia Grimes, of the Minnesota Office of Higher Education.

But that's not why Rep. Bud Nornes, R-Fergus Falls, introduced the House bill.

He called the language an unnecessary mandate. In a hearing Tuesday afternoon, he said that students are grown-ups who are "already inundated with credit card offers." The state should not prohibit colleges from making money on such deals – especially when it's considering cutting their funding

Some legislators, however, worry that without this language, cozy partnerships could push students to go deeper in debt.

While "people get a lot of credit card invitations, I don't know if they should have those invitations while they're in college," said Rep. Jeanne Poppe, DFL-Austin. "There's a lot of financial illiteracy."

If Nornes' bill passes, a public or private university could enter an agreement to market credit cards – but it would have to do so following the new federal regulations. But many colleges and universities have their own rules that could keep them from signing on.

The University of Minnesota banned marketing credit cards to students years before the state passed its regulations.

"There used to be solicitations in bookstore bags, for example," wrote spokesman Daniel Wolter in an e-mail, "but they have been gone for a number of years."

The U also had an agreement with a company to market cards to sports fans in its athletic venues, but that has lapsed and the U has not sought a renewal, he said.

"Should the repeal pass, it shouldn't be assumed that the University's position on this would change," Wolter said. "The general sense is that college campuses are not an appropriate place for marketing credit cards.

"But we're just in the process of reviewing the legislation and don't have a formal position on it at this point."