Virtually every college student now carries a credit card, which partly reflects how essential the cards have become to everyday life. But not all their effects are benign.

Three-quarters of 18- to 24-year-olds carry balances from month to month. That same group spent nearly 30 cents of every dollar it earned in 2001 on servicing debt, twice the average in 1992.

Sure, college costs deserve some of the blame. But so do credit-card companies, whose 2003 profits topped $30 billion.

Congress is on the verge of giving those same companies a gift: a long-sought overhaul of the federal bankruptcy law, which will make it harder to erase Visa and MasterCard debt if financial disaster strikes. The bill has passed the Senate and is expected to pass the House in the coming months.

One provision requires anyone seeking bankruptcy to first attend credit counseling.

Last year Sen. Christopher Dodd, D-Conn., proposed a simple protection for borrowers under 21. To get a credit card, they'd need one of three things: a co-signer, evidence of income or proof of having completed a financial-education class.

What happened? The credit-card companies fought it.