NEW YORK - When 18-year-old Thane Economou headed to college this fall, he had a checking account and a debit card - and the know-how to use them.

Financial planners like Chris Economou face the same questions that other parents do when their kids go to college: Should they send them off with checks, debit cards, credit cards or some combination of the three?

These experts seem to favor checks and debit or ATM cards for day-to-day spending. But some also recommend that students have a credit card tucked away somewhere safe for emergencies.

But he's cautioned Thane, who relies on a scholarship and an allowance from his parents, to steer clear of the credit card offers that most underclassmen are peppered with on American campuses.

"I've tried to teach my children that credit, when it's misused, can be a dreaded master," he said. "You don't want it to be in charge of you; you want to be in charge of it."

Robin Tan, a financial planner in Kirkland, Wash., said he has talked about money with his daughters, 19-year-old Alicia and 15-year-old Laura, since they were young.

"I wanted them to understand that money comes from somewhere, that you can't have everything you ask for," he said. "I wanted them clued in to the value of money."

Tan said Alicia, who returns to the University of Washington in Seattle in several weeks as a sophomore, is contributing to the cost of her tuition and dormitory with student loans and earnings from summer jobs.

"I encouraged her to do that because it will help her build her credit," he said. "And it's the kind of card with a $500 limit, a low limit, so it's pretty safe."

Alicia said she has found that cash "gets me just about everything I need" to function on campus. And while she's happy to have a credit card in her own name, she says she "intends to be cautious about using it too much before I have a steady job."

Financial planner Basil Herzstein, who is with the Gallers Financial Group in Rockville, Md., said he has made it clear to his daughters that credit is not something to be casual about.

"Over the years, my kids have learned we're rigid in terms of certain things, and one of them is credit," he said. "If you can't pay it off at the end of the month, you don't spend."

His daughter, Yael, 19, a sophomore at the University of Maryland in College Park, has two credit cards to cover expenses, just as her older sister Natanya did. Herzstein said books, tuition and other necessities such as emergency medical care go on a card that is billed directly to him.

"Then I got each child a credit card in her own name - them first, and me co-signing," he said. For this one, it's the daughter's responsibility to pay, he said, although he can monitor the cards to ensure that problems don't develop.

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