@Kpowek1 wrote:What is the best or easiest credit card for a college student to apply ?
What is best is quite subjective. What is easiest are often those for which the student received some type of pre-qualification solicitation letter - particularly if the person has any open accounts with the institution issuing the credit card. Our daughter just went through this process.
DD received letters from both Discover and Wells Fargo. She is a fulltime college student who works part time.
DD has had a debit card for a few years and a savings account at Wells Fargo. However, she has no credit history.
I spoke with Wells Fargo before she filled out her CC applications. The bank manager said:
1) As a general rule, a fulltime student should qualify for a student card if their reported income was $800/month or more ($10k annually).
2) List housing expenses as zero if the student is living at home or if parents paid for living expenses or if it was covered by scholarship.
3) Income sources outside of work can be listed, such as a general scholarship stipend that can be applied to general expenses. However, college scholarships from a University that go directly toward tuition are not qualifying income.
She applied for both cards in mid December after turning 21 at the end of October. Her income (job only) is $11k annually. She was approved for a Wells Fargo student card within a week but it took 3 weeks for the Discover It student chrome card. Both cards had some perks but the WF offered some real nice promos
WF - 0% APR for 12 months, 11.4% after; 3% cash back for 6 months, 1% after; starting CL = $1200
DC - 10.99% APR for 6 months, 17.24% after, 2% cash back for 6 months, 1% after; starting CL = $1750
A nice perk with Discover is the monthly credit score reporting. This way DD can see how building credit history impacts score. For those new to credit, Discover provides an L2C score (source: L2C, Inc). Score range goes from a low of 040 to a high of 820. Hers was 645.
Shown below is a L2C score distribution chart [Note: L2C was acquired by TransUnion in late 2014]
Let us know what you decide and how things work out.
Not sure about "easiest" but my sons all recieved Discover IT first. After a few months with the Discover card they both received Student cards from Citi and BOA as well as a regular card from Sallie Mae. My youngest received a $750 CL on Discover which they bumped to $1000 pretty quickly. All of his others were orginally $1500 CLs. My oldest had his Discover initially at $1000 and doubled to $2000 quickly. His Citi is $2000 and BOA is $700 and Sallie Mae is $5200. No clue how that happened. Neither had any type of file before the Discover either. Not sure that exactly answers your question OP, but hopefully it provides you with some good data points anyway. Good luck with whatever you do.
