Bank of America® Customized Cash Rewards for Students

Most student credit cards are cut-down versions of the issuer's main product: lower rates, fewer categories, tighter limits. This one isn't. It carries the same 6% self-selected category, 2% at grocery stores and wholesale clubs, and 1% elsewhere as the non-student version, and adds an explicit welcome offer that the non-student card doesn't have in our data: 0% intro APR for 15 billing cycles on purchases, and on balance transfers made in the first 60 days.

The caps are stated plainly, which is rarer than it should be on a student card: the 6% and 2% rates apply to the first $2,500 of combined purchases each quarter. At 6% that ceiling is worth $150 a quarter, which for most student spending is not a binding constraint at all.

The rewards are secondary. The purpose of a first credit card is to start a credit file that will be years old by the time it matters for a car loan or a mortgage, and the two things that determine whether it does that are paying in full every month and keeping the card open.

The 17.49% to 27.49% APR is the same as the non-student card's, and on a student income it's the number that can go wrong fastest. The 15 billing cycles at 0% are useful as a buffer for an unexpected expense; they are not an invitation to carry a balance through college and hand the issuer the interest afterwards.

The structure here is identical to Bank of America's Customized Cash Rewards: a self-selected category at 6% for the first year and 3% after, 2% at grocery stores and wholesale clubs, 1% on everything else, and the same $2,500 combined quarterly allowance. The published APR range, 17.49% to 27.49%, is the same too.

That is worth saying plainly because the usual assumption about student cards is that they are a worse product with an easier approval. On the figures this catalog verifies, this one is not a stripped-down version of anything.

A student card is the beginning of a credit file, and the length of that file is one of the things lenders look at. The instinct on graduating is to close it and open something better; the better move is usually to keep it open, because closing your oldest account shortens your history and removes its limit from your utilisation.

Since this card already matches the adult version's terms, there is unusually little reason to replace it at all. Choose the 3% category deliberately each year and it stays a reasonable card long after the student label stops applying.

The structure here is identical to Bank of America's Customized Cash Rewards: a self-selected category at 6% for the first year and 3% after, 2% at grocery stores and wholesale clubs, 1% on everything else, and the same $2,500 combined quarterly allowance. The published APR range, 17.49% to 27.49%, is the same too.

That is worth saying plainly because the usual assumption about student cards is that they are a worse product with an easier approval. On the figures this catalog verifies, this one is not a stripped-down version of anything.

A student card is the beginning of a credit file, and the length of that file is one of the things lenders look at. The instinct on graduating is to close it and open something better; the better move is usually to keep it open, because closing your oldest account shortens your history and removes its limit from your utilisation.

Since this card already matches the adult version's terms, there is unusually little reason to replace it at all. Choose the 3% category deliberately each year and it stays a reasonable card long after the student label stops applying.