Is a Discover Student Credit Card Wise to Give Your Child?
Is your child ready for more financial responsibility? The situation could be that you’re ready to teach your kid how to handle money better or that your child has expressed the desire to have more financial responsibilities. Either way, there’s no better to learn how to manage credit and finances responsibly than by getting your child a student credit card.
Discover it for Students is a student credit card that can help your child build the foundation for a good credit history. We all know that kids and credit card can be a dangerous combination. It doesn’t matter if your child is in high school or in college. Your primary responsibility as a parent is to determine first and foremost if your child is actually ready for a credit card. There’s a certain freedom that comes with having a credit card, and your child has to be mature enough to be able to handle that freedom. If all is good to go in that department, looking into the Discover Student Card might be a smart way to go.
Apart from maturity level, you have to make sure that your children are able to pay for the credit cards by themselves. Giving them cards when they have no way to repay what they owe is basically the same as giving them free money. You’ll want them to have full responsibility of what they owe and nothing less. The difference with having a credit card versus just a normal debit card is the ability of credit cards to build credit the way that debit cards just can’t.
The Discover it for Students
There are many other extra benefits to getting the Discover Student Card for your child apart from the credit-building opportunity. First and most importantly, this card doesn’t have any annual fees. It’s a great starter card for your teens because they won’t have to contend with fees when they don’t have to. Most of the time, the credit limit will be reduced in these cards to begin with, so no annual fees is a great way to go.
This card is also equipped with a generous cash back reward system. New cardholders will have the chance to double their rewards the very first year they have the card. In addition to this, Discover will also automatically match whatever cash you’ve earned back by the end of the first year. However, you might not want to let your child take advantage of this benefit by swiping any chance they get.
As far as the cash rewards are concerned, your child will earn 5 percent cash back on new categories such as restaurants, gas, Amazon, and many more. The cash back will be up to $1,500 each quarter. You’ll also get 1% cash back on all other categories. The 5% cash back is quite generous even when compared to the standards of regular credit cards. It also makes sense that it rewards what teens spend their money most on.
The only difference with this card is that you’ll have to sign up every three months to avail of the 5% promotional categories. Because this is such a special program designated only for the younger population using this card, the sign up program actually makes sense, even if you don’t max out the promotions each quarter. Just as a general calculation, an average spending of $1k each quarter will earn you $50 in rewards for a total of $200 in annual rewards. That’s also not taking into account the 1% cash back rewards and the first year cash back match.
Good grades
Perhaps the best feature of this student credit card is the fact that Discover rewards those who do well in school. The Discover it for Students has a Good Grades Rewards program, where your child has the opportunity to earn $20 cash back each year that his or her GPA is 3.0 or higher. This benefit is valid for up to five years.
All in all, giving your child the financial responsibility and freedom of having a credit card makes sense with the use of the Discover student card. It has enough benefits and features to make it worthwhile. With your supervision, your child should be on his or her way towards a healthy financial future.