American Express' apparent success in attracting college students has not, however, dissuaded banks from also competing for the college market.

Banks such as BayBank Systems Incorporated, CitiBank, Chase Manhattan and Nations Bank also offer incentives to woo college students to open MasterCard and Visa accounts.

BayBank, which started soliciting students only four years ago, entered the market with the sole purpose of recruiting long-term customers, according to Jim M. Cosman, president of BayBank Systems credit corp.

Cosman says that, although the student market composes a small percentage of total credit customers, BayBank decided to take advantage of its fall recruiting of college student checking accounts to appeal to potential new credit cardholders.

Not only does it waive the minimum income requirements, BayBank created a special $500 credit line in place of the usual $1000 minimum to make the accounts more accessible to students.

"We make a distinction between college students and everyone else, so we offer something to students that is not offered to everybody else," Cosman says.

The president of the credit corp. says because BayBank does not want to penalize college students who do not have a regular source of income and thus risk losing future customers, the bank accepts parents and "other questionable sources" as guarantee for payment.

"We always look at our business on terms of profit for our stockholders, and we felt that students pay us as well or better than our general customers," Cosman adds.

To help ensure that BayBank will retain their college cardholders after graduation, Cosman says that they arrange consultation appointments about increasing credit lines to coincide with the time of a student's graduation.

Several college credit cardholders interviewed say they opened accounts to take advantage of these perks, especially the bargain-priced plane tickets.

Elissa L. Gootman '95 of Matthews Hall, says the cheaper tickets are "the only reason" she is willing to pay the American Express $55 annual fee.

Other students say what drew them to buying on credit was the many uses for the card. They order by phone from mail order catalogs and have convenient access to money. In addition, they can establish credit histories, since credit companies waive minimum income requirements.

"Hopefully having a good credit history will make it easier to get loans in the future," says Franco M. Baseggio '92 of Leverett House.

For still others, the challenge of managing their money attracted them to open credit card accounts. They say keeping up-to-date on monthly payments is good practice for dealing with more significant future financial transactions, such as securing loans and buying cars and houses.

"Having a credit card gives me a much better perspective on how to keep track of my money and makes me more conscientious of how I spend it," says Justin N. King '95 of Holworthy Hall.