Answer:

1. Credit Card (35.6%)
2. Student Loan (19.9%)
3. Retail Credit Card (13.7%)

Questions:

• Why do you think that credit cards tend to be the entry point for establishing credit for so many consumers? 
• Almost no one in any age group establish their credit for the first time by taking out a mortgage. Why do you think that is true? 
• How do you think that you will establish credit? 

Here's the ready-to-go slides for this Question of the Day that you can use in your classroom.

Behind the numbers (from CFPB):

Table 2 reveals several facts about the entry products that trigger the creation of consumer credit records.7 Credit cards are the most common entry product across all of the age groups in the table. Student loans are the next-most common overall, though this is entirely driven by the transitions of consumers younger than 25. Student loans are rarely the entry product for older consumers. The only other loan type that was a more frequent entry product for younger consumers than for older consumers was auto loans, though the decline by age is minimal. Mortgages, personal loans, and retail loans are more frequently entry products for older consumers. Of these, retail loans are notably more often the entry product.

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Find out the dangers of predatory lending by having your students play the latest McKinney-NGPF game, Shady Sam. 

https://s3.amazonaws.com/files.consumerfinance.gov/f/documents/BecomingCreditVisible_Data_Point_Final.pdf

About the Author

Tim Ranzetta

Tim's saving habits started at seven when a neighbor with a broken hip gave him a dog walking job. Her recovery, which took almost a year, resulted in Tim getting to know the bank tellers quite well (and accumulating a savings account balance of over $300!). His recent entrepreneurial adventures have included driving a shredding truck, analyzing executive compensation packages for Fortune 500 companies and helping families make better college financing decisions. After volunteering in 2010 to create and teach a personal finance program at Eastside College Prep in East Palo Alto, Tim saw firsthand the impact of an engaging and activity-based curriculum, which inspired him to start a new non-profit, Next Gen Personal Finance.

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