On March 17, five authorities including the Ministry of Education and People's Bank of China, announced that micro-lending platforms have been banned from giving consumer loans to college students.

College students are a special consumption group. Though some of them earn money from scholarships or internships, the majority needs parental support to cover their basic needs. As they have not yet formed a mature attitude toward consumption, they are likely to run into the problems of impulsive spending and excessive spending if they have access to money.

University campuses have become the targets of those platforms that issue online consumer loans, causing some students to overspend and fall into debt traps.

In addition to having a detrimental effect on a student's personal and college life, this also damages the order and credit of the financial market.

The authorities have asked the lenders to gradually reduce their loans to students while organizations without a financial license cannot offer credit services to college students.  

This is an edited excerpt of an article originally published in People.com.cn on March 19 

(Print Edition Title: Avoiding Campus Loan Trap )