For her first credit card my daughter applied for a visa card at a BofA in person where they knew what to enter to get her approved as a college freshman. The key is to include parents support $. She got a ATM/debit card when in HS - free student BofA account (although it also had my name on it.) Once she graduated college and had a job, she added a discover card . She has inched up the credit limit on the BofA visa as her income has increased. Her credit score is in the 700’s. She has never paid interest or any credit card fees (neither have my husband and I).
Teach your college student to be responsible with their physical cards - ATM, Debit, Credit, driver’s license, college ID, Passport, etc. Don’t keep them all on their person - leave something back in their dorm in case their backpack/wallet/purse is stolen, they will want to still have a reliable form of ID and way to pay for stuff.
The 3 local banks around our kids high school (Union Bank, Bank of America, WAMU/Chase, one credit union) sent out mailers to the seniors with college account “deals” and had Saturday “fairs” in the month of June.
The students and parents could “shop” for rates and cards. The common factors were a checking account and a credit card with a limit. The other factors were rates, lines of credit and interest.
One kid went OOS, so she opened her checking account with Key Bank and she kept her local account for ATM. She established credit with a Discover card for emergencies.
One kid stayed in state and she opened a checking and master card with debit ATM.
Another kid in state didn’t open checking but opened two CC’s and ATM card. He did a discover card for emergencies.
Adding a child to one of your own credit cards can let them piggyback their score on yours. Buying something on an installment contract can help as well. There is nothing wrong with debt as such: making payments on time is what counts.
You can look up what factors the credit rating companies look for. They give some points for having a savings/checking account, different points for revolving credit, more points for not using more than 30% of that revolving credit (per card, not overall), points for a car loan. The student won’t get positive points for having a student loan if it is not in repayment mode (my daughter’s just says ‘current’ but her credit score doesn’t move). Sometimes credit is not ‘good’ even if it is paid on time, like 90 day same as cash accounts.
If you add your kids to your accounts but don’t give a SSN, they won’t get credit for that account.
I added my kids onto my credit card when they went away to college. I was very surprised when they graduated and ran a credit report for an apartment or car that my credit card appeared on their credit report, giving them excellent credit.