Best Student Credit Cards

The Bank of America Cash Rewards™ Credit Card for Students (Review) is one of the most rewarding cards for students, with a 3% category you can customize to your liking each month.

With this flexible card you can adjust your bonus category each month to fit your expected spending. So if you’re going on a trip next month, for example, you could use the travel category to get 3% back on your airfare and hotel bookings, and even a car rental. Then, when the new month begins, you can switch your category to gas to help fuel your adventure.

If you make a variety of purchases throughout the year (and who doesn’t?) it’s useful to have a card with a variety of bonus categories.

That’s what you’ll get from the Discover it® Student Cash Back (Review), which is probably the most rewarding student card available. Its 5% cash back categories rotate throughout the year, covering some pretty common student purchases. If you want a simple but rewarding card with excellent customer support, this could be the one for you.

Discover’s Cashback Match means you’ll be earning a cash back equivalent of 10% in the bonus categories for the first year, and 2% for everything else. Those are excellent rates, even for non-student cards.

The Discover it Student is just as rewarding as the non-student version, the Discover it® Cash Back (Review), although some of the other terms are different.

Heading out for an exciting adventure in another country? It’ll be nice to have a convenient payment method, one that won’t cost you extra for using it outside the U.S.

The Bank of America Travel Rewards® Credit Card for Students checks that box by having no foreign transaction fee, so that should help keep expenses down. You’ll also get a solid rate on purchases through the BofA Travel Center, so try to book through that service when possible.

This card also comes with chip-and-PIN capability, making it more useful at certain terminals and automated kiosks outside the U.S. You can easily set or change your PIN online. If you’ll be traveling to foreign countries it’s often a good idea to have a PIN card in your wallet.

Gas and dining are pretty popular categories on student cards, but the the Discover it® Student chrome (Review) provides the best consistent rewards for those purchases.

So this card is great in the first year, providing a 4% cash back equivalent on gas and dining, and 2% back for everything else. After that it drops to a more tame rewards program.

You won’t be earning a ton of cash back with this card, which is fairly typical for student cards. But in your first year you’ll get very competitive rates for gas and dining, equal to some of the best non-student cash back cards.

Flat-rate credit cards provide the same rate for every purchase, making them excellent choices to fill in the gaps between the bonus categories of other cards.

You might have cards with good bonus categories for groceries and gas, but what about those random Walmart and corner store purchases? That’s where flat-rate cards come in handy.

The Journey Student Rewards from Capital One (Review) is the best flat-rate card for students. As long as you pay on time (and why wouldn’t you?), you’ll be earning almost as much cash back as the typical non-student flat-rate card, like the Chase Freedom Unlimited® (Review) which provides 1.5% back.

The Journey Student may also provide a higher credit line after your first six months. That extra spending capacity should be very useful on a student card, which usually comes with a fairly low credit limit.

Anyone can apply for the Journey Student Rewards card — it isn’t limited to students, despite the name.

With no fees at all aside from potential interest charges, the Petal® 2 Cash Back, No Fees Visa® Card (Review) is a great first credit card.

Most card issuers will check your credit history when you apply — but what if you don’t have any credit history yet, and no credit scores? The Petal card might be for you.

If you have no established credit, Petal will ask to connect to your bank account to check your financial situation, as a way to judge your riskiness as a borrower. This gives you another avenue for approval if you don’t have any credit. If you do have some credit built up, Petal will likely run a hard inquiry to check it, like most issuers do.

The Deserve Edu Mastercard (Review) is good for international students because it doesn’t require a Social Security number to apply. Deserve will also check more than the usual credit history factors when you apply, like your education and future employability, giving you a better chance of approval than most cards.

So, if you’re arriving in the U.S. to study and you don’t have an SSN this may be one of the few cards available to you. International students will need to provide proof of a U.S. bank account and copies of their student visas, passport IDs, and school documents.

Take note that Deserve will need to connect to your bank account to verify your balance. If you have privacy or security concerns this might worry you, but it seems reasonable because Deserve bases its decision on more than the typical credit approval factors.

You’ll probably have trouble getting approved for any credit card — even secured cards — if you’re working with little to no income. If you’re under 21, issuers are required by law to consider whether you can make your monthly payments before they issue you a card. With that said, if you’re going to be approved for any credit card with minimal income, it’s likely going to be secured.

The Citi Secured Card is a good option because it doesn’t require a bank account, which you may not have (or want to use), in order to apply. However, if you’re not using a bank account, you must apply and provide your deposit in person at a Citibank branch.

It’s a no-frills secured card, requiring a security deposit of $200–$2,500. With consistent responsible use, your security deposit may be returned, and you could be upgraded to the unsecured Citi® Diamond Preferred® Card (Review). But you may have to have some kind of income for that to happen.