CARBONDALE - Southern Illinois University Carbondale is offering a first this semester that could have bearing on students' futures.

"Are You Credit Wise" is a semester-long campaign provided by MasterCard financial services designed to teach students how to responsibly manage their finances and credit cards.

It's the first credit card debt-counseling program offered at SIUC since a 2003 survey was conducted on campus as part of a financial education program from University of Illinois to get a credit card debt-counseling program established here and at other universities.

Kellee Monahan, a senior majoring in public relations at SIUC, is talking to small groups of students - fraternity and sorority groups, dorm residents and other student organizations - about effective financial practices such as making budgets and sticking to them, not using credit cards to spend what you don't have and the finer points of credit history scores.

She underwent a two-day training workshop this summer in Washington, D.C., to learn more about how to communicate budgeting and credit management know-how to people her own age.

"I myself had credit card problems. I called my parents to help me pay it off. It is stressful. I didn't have a clue. It's important to learn now because 20 years from now, when you try to buy your own home, your credit report may not allow you to do it," Monahan said.

Students hear through the program how damaging continuing interest rates are to their finances and how to logically reason through their spending temptations. Rather than offering a hands-on approach to individual budget review and planning requests, the program is designed to show students the consequences of their actions, said Patrick Dwyer, vice president for consumer and public policy at MasterCard.

"The idea is to go after distinct groups of students, such as freshmen away from home for the first time. Every decision they make now affects them for the future. We've seen a noticeable response in what we're trying to do. We find more often than not that universities embrace this," Dwyer said.

Since its inception in 1998, the MasterCard program has been hosted at 60 campuses in the United States and Canada and reached an estimated 420,000 students.

scott.fitzgerald@thesouthern.com / 351-5076