In a telephone conference Senator Chuck Schumer of New York had this to say about identity theft: "In today's information age, our personal information is more valuable than ever ... And it's getting worse and worse."

One segment of the population is particularly vulnerable and that is young people. More specifically college students.

Why are they more likely to be victimized? Regrettably there is more than one answer to this question.

1. Keep It Coming

Students arrive on campus and more often than not find themselves swamped by credit card offers. A number of colleges past and present have allowed the credit card industry to set up shop on university grounds. It's only a given that many students would like to establish a line of credit for themselves but they obviously do not see the value of accepting every offer so they pick the ones they want and discard the rest.

And identity thieves calculate correctly in most instances that the student will not dispose of the applications properly. So you have tons of offers sitting in the garbage. For identity thieves this is the equivalent of hitting the lottery over and over again. And in the meantime the offers keep pouring in.

2. Sharing

The internet age is upon us and many young people are at the forefront. They have no problem and see no harm in sharing much of their information with others in their online community. Except quite a few colleges do not have solid security on their computer networks. As Todd Feinman of Identity Finder tells the Tulsa World, "So that leaves some doors open for hackers and identity thieves of which to take advantage. Combine that potential vulnerability with the fact schools typically have every student's Social Security number - and not just current ones, but all the ones from years past."

It does not help that the Department of Education found that fifty percent of college students have had their grades posted by their social security numbers. That's sharing taking to the extreme.

3. Not Worried About It

Let's face it, you go to college and as a young person you have loads of new found freedoms. The last thing many of them are thinking about is identity theft. Sure they may have heard their parents mention it a time or two. But hey, their parents. They worry about everything. It's not deliberate carelessness on the part of the student it's just that they have enough on their plate without adding anymore to it.