Credit Cards for Students Are Not Always a Bad Idea

Credit cards for students are often considered a bad idea. In fact, it’s many college students who are given credit cards they don’t know how to use that end up in the most financial trouble in the future. It happens, and there’s nothing you can do about it after the fact that learn from your mistakes and move on. However, we don’t think that credit cards for students are a bad idea it students are taught responsible financial habits by their parents or their educators. Anyone can have a credit card and never worry about debt if they know how to use it, and that’s why this should be a subject that is taught in high schools across the country; financial sense 101 – an introduction to staying out of debt and financially free once you have an income. But we won’t get started on how our education system is teaching our kids the importance of test scores and weird and crazy ways of adding and subtracting that make it take 19 times longer; and we’ll just focus on the fact that students can have a credit card and stay out of trouble if they understand these rules.

Credit Cards are Not Free Money

A check that comes in the mail addressed to you for $500 just because someone loves you is free money. A credit card with a $500 spending limit that comes to you in the mail a week after your high school graduation is not free money. You will have to give this money back if you spend it. Remember that.

Credit Cards are Not for Fun

Credit cards are for emergencies only. When you are older and you are making money and earning a nice living, credit cards can be used for whatever you want to use them for as long as you pay them off in full every month. We don’t care if you buy everything from your gum to making your mortgage payment with your credit card so you can get the free airline miles as long as you pay it off in full each month.

Credit Cards are Serious

If you don’t pay it back one month, it’s not just a few phone calls you’re going to get. It’s a few points taken from your credit score. It’s a future in which you can’t apply for a mortgage to buy a house because you didn’t take your cards seriously in college. It’s a future where you can’t apply for a car loan because your credit is destroyed. Respect the card and respect your credit.

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