Seth Woodworth stood paralyzed by fear in his parents' driveway in Moses Lake, Wash. It was two years ago, during his sophomore year at Central Washington University, and on this visit, he was bringing home far more than laundry. He was carrying more than $3,000 in credit-card debt. "I was pretty terrified of listening to my voice mail because of all the messages about the money I owed," says Woodworth. He did get some help from his parents but still had to drop out of school to pay down his debts.

Over the next month, as 17 million college students flood the nation's campuses, they will be greeted by swarms of credit-card marketers. Frisbees, T-shirts, and even iPods will be used as enticements to sign up, and marketing on the Web will reinforce the message. Many kids will go for it. Some 75% of college students have credit cards now, up from 67% in 1998. Just a generation earlier, a credit card on campus was a great rarity.

For many of the students now, the cards they get will simply be an easier way to pay for groceries or books, with no long-term negative consequences. But for Seth Woodworth and a growing number like him, easy access to credit will lead to spending beyond their means and debts that will compromise their futures. The freshman 15, a fleshy souvenir of beer and late-night pizza, is now taking on a new meaning, with some freshman racking up more than $15,000 in credit-card debt before they can legally drink. "It's astonishing to me to see college students coming out of school with staggering amounts of debt and credit scores so abominable

It was three years ago and Irene Leech still remembers the shock clearly. An associate professor at Virginia Tech who specializes in consumer affairs, she read the terms of the credit card that her school, together with JPMorgan Chase (JPM), was marketing to students, alumni, and staff. Behind the card's shiny surface, featuring the football stadium at sunset, the so-called "affinity" card offered some of the most unfavorable terms around for card users. Among other things, the card had what's known as "double-cycle" billing, where interest is calculated over two months instead of the typical one, resulting in higher finance charges. "I was shocked," she says.

The experience convinced Leech that it was time for her to take a stand. First in a limited way and now more broadly, she has been speaking out against the conflicts of interest that universities face when they strike business agreements with credit card companies. Chase ultimately dropped double-cycle billing on the Virginia Tech card, as it did for all cards earlier this year. But Leech warns that schools that get money from credit card companies through affinity contracts or other marketing agreements face intractable problems, in which the school's financial interests are in direct conflict with those of students and alumni.

"Students assume that if the university has an affinity contract with a bank to offer a credit card, the university will surely look after them," she says. "But these

The idea of reincarnation is a bit too ethereal for use as an investment tool. But leading stocks often do give up the ghost, then return, sometimes years later, to yield solid gains. CAN SLIM rules help determine whether and when to jump back in.

Case in point: Internet portal Yahoo (NasdaqGS:YHOO - News). In the late 1990s, Yahoo's blend of content and search capabilities made it a leading locus for Internet traffic. Ad revenue drove the Sunnyvale, Calif.-based company's sales and earnings well ahead of its dot-com peers.

Yahoo shares sailed 1,200% in the four years following its 1996 IPO. But the stock slipped into a dot-coma early in 2000, just before the Nasdaq's crash in March.

Yahoo sales dropped 35% in 2001, after an 88% increase the year before. Earnings in 2001 fell 83%. The stock plunged 97%. Investors turned attention elsewhere.

On Comeback Trail

But Yahoo immediately bounced back, growing sales by 33% and more than doubling earnings in 2002. Forecasts called for even stronger growth in the coming