College Students Guide to the Best Credit Card Offer

College students are one of the best credit card offer targets for agents. There are now laws that protect those below twenty one years old from being victimized. But you can’t rely solely on laws to protect you. You need to protect yourself as no one else will. College students are especially susceptible to the seductive buying power and freedom that plastic brings. This is why it is doubly important for them to protect themselves from scams that are specifically targeted at exploiting these weaknesses. Before you choose which offer, keep these tips in mind.

Read Everything Carefully

Obviously you need to read the whole deal before you sign anything right? The problem is that not too many people read the whole terms and conditions. Also, sometimes a college card applicant would read the whole thing, but fail to understand some parts of it. I tell you this: those parts you don’t understand are probably the most critical parts. It has long been the practice of card companies to obfuscate or confuse applicants. You see if a cardholder does not fully understand a term, he or she might easily slip up and end up increasing the interest rates or triggering penalty fees. You might think for example, that the rates are permanent when in fact, the rates will go up after a year or due to a certain missed payment. Remember, banks and creditors want you to be in debt forever. This way, they can take money from you forever.

In the same way that you should know all terms and pitfalls, you should also know the benefits. These benefits will be the other deciding factors of whether a credit card offer is good for you or not.
 
Do some Self Reflection

After you have determined the good and the bad, you should then take a moment to reflect. Consider everything about yourself that might determine which card you should get. However, you should not only consider the obvious facts. You should also consider your habits and penchants. Not a lot of people know themselves. Others think they do but they don’t. They think they could handle the temptation of a credit card with such a large maximum credit limit, until they end up buying something you can’t pay off with your income. Also, you will never really know which points in a credit card offer are good or bad for you if you don’t know yourself. You might think that cash rebates are good until you end up buying too much stuff you don’t really need just to get the rebates.