Wells Fargo called costliest to students

NEW YORK — Wells Fargo charges students the most in fees on average to have a bank account, according to a government report.

The report from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and released late Friday showed that students paid an average of $46.99 in fees to Wells Fargo over 12 months. That’s nearly double the fees charged students by TCF National Bank and U.S. Bank, which ranked second and third.

The bureau report focused on what are known as college-sponsored accounts, for which a bank often pays money to a college or university to market their accounts to students when they arrive on campus. College-sponsored accounts have been controversial for some time, since a college’s endorsement of a product tends to carry weight with students and parents when they are searching for a good or service.

In fact, the bureau report found that banks that paid marketing fees to colleges and universities were often the ones charging students higher fees. Banks that paid colleges to promote their products had an average fee of $36.52 while banks that didn’t do paid promotions had an average fee of $11.93. The fees calculated by the bureau included both account maintenance fees and overdraft fees.

In total, the bureau examined 573 colleges and universities over the 2016-2017 academic year and found that students collectively paid $27.6 million in fees to banks.