Best Credit Card for a college student

Discover student

Also OP, before you get your card educate yourself if you havent already on what effects your score.

The big ones are... in this order I believe.

1. On time payments. Dont ever miss a payment. Set it up to be automatically paid every month and if you are new to budgeting it will be benefit you to just pay it when ever there is a charge on it.

2. Utilization - dont use more than 30 percent of your cards limit. Better yet, dont use more than 10 percent. And as a tip, if you pay it off everytime there is a charge you wont rack up a large utilization percentage. I pay for everything I can on my cards and always have a 1% utilization because I pay them off every couple of days.

3. Credit history- this is hard to do much about if you are just starting out. But if you know someone with great credit like your parents... you can get them to add you as an authorized user. Then their credit history becomes part of yours.. you dont even have to have access to the card or number. However, if they frick up their credit, it will effect yours. And they are responsible for paying off anything you put on it. I already have my 14 year old on my citibank card building credit.

4. New credit - this includes inquiries and new lines of credit opened. Just dont open a ton all at once. Add a card every year or so until you get what you need. (The discover student card is a great card cause it has all the benefits of what an adult with good credit can get from discover, plus added benefits for good grades).
Whatever you choose.. be picky and pick out ones you think you'll want to keep a long time. Because if you cancel it will effect your credit history.

5. Types of credit - Lenders like to see a variety of credit types on your history. At first you may only have things like your credit card and possibly a car loan. But things like an installment loan and mortgage can help. But dont go get one for no reason. My credit was in the 750s just based on credit cards alone after two years of having them.

6. Credit limit - Your first card is gonna probably start you off small... so you wont be able to charge much to it and keep your utilization low. But every 6 months you can ask for an increase without an inquiry or anything that will effect your credit. Most allow you to do this via app or website pretty easily. As your limits increase you can use them more to reap the benefits like cash back.

Also, if you havent done it yet, pull at least one credit report from annualcreditreport.com

Equifax, transunion, or experian. I would recommend transunion. If you dont have anything on it you know you have no credit. If you have a car loan with missed payment, or something else with missed payments, or something that's been turned over to a collection agency you may want to investigate your situation further.

Then get yourself a app to check your credit score regularly. Like creditwise. Alot of credit cards and banks will also give you a score from their app or website. Credit karma will as well, but it's pretty annoying. Check them all to give you an idea of what your score is. Cause it will very. Experian almost always reports me the highest by a good bit for example. The rest are usually with 10 points or so.