Why Students Should Have a Credit Card

Everyone seems to have this picture of a reckless teenager living the high life with a credit card, racking up a bill that they couldn’t possibly hope to pay. Back in the days of the first credit cards, this may have been the case when the credit card was first introduced. However, like everything, the credit card has evolved over time and those days are long gone.

Long gone are the days of a parent worrying about how they’re going to pay their son or daughter’s massive credit card account at the end of the month. Now with modern credit cards, students can obtain a credit card, and have a reasonable limit placed on their cards. And with online credit card services, like never before it is so easy for parents to monitor their young ones’ credit card usage in real-time. It really is like Big Brother, with parents able to obtain detail of specific transactions of their children’s spending habits. Should a child decide to go on a spending spree, the reasonable credit limits can be lower if needed. That means that the spending spree will be short-lived, which means their parents can sleep easy at night.

Also, credit cards are accepted almost everywhere nowadays, which is a great insurance policy for students if they find themselves stranded with no cash. They’re convenient and, obviously, they’re a-lot safer then carrying around cash. Unfortunately, schools and campuses aren’t as safe as we would all like them to be. It’s not uncommon to hear of bag snatching or robberies and the first thing that these types of perpetrators will look for is a wallet. So having the absolute minimum cash in the wallet means that any loss you incur, should you fall victim to one of these robberies, will be minimum. Remember that reporting your credit card stolen is only a phone call away, so you can have your card cancelled within minutes of the incident. This means that the perpetrator will never have a chance to rack up a bill on your credit card.

Another reason that students should have a credit card is because nowadays cash has very much become a second rate currency, with credit cards taking the leading in the way money flows around the world. So it only makes sense with Generation Y’s massive obsession with technology and having everything quick and instant, that a credit card would be the perfect source of funding their increasingly busy lives.

Write to Julie Williams at julie@creditdonkey.com