If you are a student schooling in the United States, I do not need to stress the importance of having a sound credit card.
Having a credit card comes with great perks, and probably the most crucial reason to have one is that if you use it wisely, and have a little bit of self-discipline, this will help you build your credit. And in return, when you have good credit, you will be able to stand a chance of getting future loans such as a mortgage with better rates than you could possibly imagine.
So today we’ll be looking at some of the best credit cards for students, that do not only offer sweet cashback benefits but those that will help you build your credit profile in the long run of its usage. Without further ado, let’s get to know these cards!
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Discover It Student Cashback Card
The discover it card has a 0% intro APR on purchases in the first six months. In other words, you won’t have to pay any interest for the first six months when using this card as a student here in the United States. However, I would highly encourage you, if you’re able to pay that amount in full right away or every month, then you should go ahead and do that.
Another advantage in using this card as a student is that you get a rolling cash reward up to 5% cashback, and even up to $15,000 every quarter on different purchase categories. But, you have to remember that quarterly activation is often required in this case.
Another irresistible bonus is the “excellent student bonus”, with which you can earn $20 of statement credit for each year. That is, if your GPA is above 3.0 for the first five years, then you’ve got some money already waiting for you. That’s more or less like you’re being paid to study!
Journeys Student Rewards from Capital One Card
With this card, you get a 1% cashback on all of your purchases, and if you pay on time, it will be bumped up to a 1.5% cashback. Since making the right decisions is paramount, after having this card and making your first five payments on time, you can get a higher credit limit. And with a more upper credit limit, it will boost your credit score because when using this card, your credit utilization will be less. And credit utilization is one of the pillars of your credit score number.
The Citi Awards Student Card
With this card, there’s a 0% APR for the first seven months. The cash rewards redemption is not too bad on this card, and you’re in twice the points when using it at a supermarket or gas station, up to six thousand and combined categories spending per year. Any other purchases only offer 1% cashback.
Also, the Citi card has a strange but remarkable point system where it rounds up to the nearest ten-point increment on every purchase. In other words, let’s say you buy something that earns you 56 points, Citi will bump that up to 60 points, and will keep doing that on your first 100,000 points.
Again, this is one of the few cards for college students that offer a signup bonus. So, when you spend $500 within the first three months of opening this card, you will earn 2500 points, which is equivalent to a $25 gift card.
Bank of America Travel Rewards Credit Card for Students
Out of all the credit cards mentioned in this write-up, this credit card has the highest signup bonus. Want to know how’s that possible? Well, this card will give you up to 25,000 in points when you spend a thousand dollars in the first 90 days. And that 25 thousand
points will round up to about $250.
Meaning, if you feel you can spend up to a thousand dollars on your first 90 days on things that you might need, you might as well take advantage of this free money.
With this card you also earn an unlimited 1.5point on every dollar that you spend, thus making it a pretty good all-around card, with the highest signup bonus.
The Bank of America cash rewards credit card for students
This credit card is a little bit different from the previous one because it gives you a zero per cent interest for the first year. Thus, it will be helpful to buy a bunch of things and not have to worry about paying it back for the first year. However, I don’t recommend you doing this because you still get to have a pretty decent signing bonus after spending 500$ on your early 90 days, getting up to $150 cash back with this credit card.
Also, you can earn up to three per cent cashback on the category of choice, which can be either gas stations online, shopping travel dining and drugstores. You can also earn 2% cash back at grocery stores and hotel clubs. But, earning points for these categories are limited only up to $2,500 for purchases each quarter and then 1% cash back after that.
Credit cards can be a great financial
tool for you as a student. But, they can also be an enormous financial burden depending on how wisely you use it.
Owning a credit card as a student, you have all the types of protection and benefits including, not having to carry cash around, a rewards program and a tracking system that lets you know how you’re spending your money. So get the best card that fits your purpose and desire, so that it will help you pay and also earn at the same time.