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Student credit cards are a relatively new commodity so to speak. It is a new concept for students to be issued credit cards. But lately, a lot of banks are directly approaching students at their college campuses in order to convince them to buy credit cards from them. This sort of direct marketing along with the fact that a lot of rewards and freebies are being doled out means that students are finding it really easy to own and use a credit card.
If you are a United States citizen, you can easily find someone to co-sign on your credit card. In most cases, it will be your parents who will already have a robust credit history to their name. But if you are an international student, it will take you some time to establish a credit history. And unless your parents are working in the country, you are going to find it tough to get a credit card as soon as you land in the country. In such cases, the first step to take is to get a letter from your college and open a bank account with your local bank. You can open one or more extra accounts with other banks in order to better manage your finances. Opening accounts is the first way to start establishing a record with the banks and this will go a long way in the future.
After around six months of doing this, you can start applying for credit cards independently. Start out by going for banks which are known to give out cards to newbie`s. For starters, the terms and conditions will never be favorable. Usually the interest late will be very high. And you will also not get a very high credit limit. This is only right because if you have a high credit limit, you might end up splurging and you will most probably not be able to pay it back as a student. And also the high interest rate on borrowed funds should discourage you from making late payments.
Your first criteria should be to build your credit history. You can do this by making day to day purchases using your credit card and paying it back as soon as possible. The best way is to connect the credit account to the bank account so that you can directly deposit funds from your savings account onto the credit account. This will save you the hassles of having to mail out checks to the bank everytime you get a statement from them. Try to do everything electronically as it will save you time and there will be lesser errors both on your part and also from the banks side.
