It’s not often you can read a report that links college students and credit cards to a positive outcome. But I’ve found one.

A study released in July by the Federal Reserve found that the number of credit cards issued to college students and members of alumni associations in 2010 fell 17 percent from the previous year.

The Fed research also noted that the number of marketing agreements between credit card issuers and colleges, universities and alumni associations declined 4 percent to 1,004 in 2010. Colleges and universities received $73.3 million in licensing fees in 2010 from credit card issuers, but that amount was down 13 percent from 2009.

The hard numbers provide one indication that banking reform laws passed in 2009 to limit the marketing of plastic to college students — and the amount of debt they take on — appear to be working.

That’s gigantic news and quite a change of pace from the headlines we’ve become accustomed to seeing in recent years about college students’ carrying multiple credit cards, running up dangerously high balances and staying in a cycle of debt by making only the minimum monthly payments.

Often all it took to put students on the plastic path was a free T-shirt, a pizza coupon and a few trinkets handed out on campus by credit card companies.

It’s become a bit harder since the passage of the Credit Card Act.

Read the complete story at kansascity.com