Credit Cards for College Students – Tips and Advice
Credit cards for college students can be a great way to allow you, as a student, to begin building your credit history. Credit cards for college students will also allow you to conveniently pay for books, supplies and other expenses that will be essential to your college life.
Here are a few tips on selecting and maintaining credit cards for college students.
Do a lot of online research before you decide to apply for credit cards for college students
You must remember that you credit score will be affected, mostly negatively, every time you apply for a credit card. So, it would be a pretty bad idea to apply for every student credit card offer that comes your way.
Use online search engines to find sites that will compare various credit cards for college students. The most important aspects that you should look for when choosing from different credit cards for college students are introductory 0% APR periods, applicable APR% after introductory period, annual fees, reward point programs, etc. More about these aspects is discussed below.
What would be a good offer when choosing between credit cards for college students?
Generally, credit cards with anything more than 20% interest should not be considered as there are several credit cards for college students that keep their interest rates in the low to high teens. Also, there are many offers out there that will offer a 6 month, 0% APR period. Some credit companies might even offer 9 months and one should look around accordingly.
As a general rule of thumb, you must avoid credit cards for college students that will charge an annual fee as the majority of student credit cards will not charge such fees.
Look for additional features such as an interest rate that will automatically lower itself when you make credit card payments on time. For example, Citi has a credit card for students called Forward that will automatically lower interest rate by .25 percentage points, every 3 months a student has been good with early credit card payments. Though it might seem like a small discount, it could essentially become a 2% percentage point discount on the APR% of the credit card, over an entire year.
Some special features like reward points might be attractive for some students. For example, students who frequently use flight tickets to fly home will find credit cards for college students attractive when they offer attractive reward points that can be redeemed as discounted or free flight tickets.
Maintaining credit cards for college students
As a college student, you must be very responsible with the use of your credit card. Try to keep the outstanding balance less than 30% of your credit line, as anything more will begin to affect your credit score. Maintaining credit cards for college students with prudence will allow students to walk out of college with a great credit score that they can then use to avail attractive financing options when they purchase homes, cars and other assets that will become possibilities once they land a job, right out of college.
