Summer will be here before you know it and with it comes another high school graduating class. These students will be getting ready to head off to college soon, and parents need to make sure that they are all well prepared. Some parents may feel that giving their child a credit is setting themselves up for a large bill at the end of the month. Of course you can give them a credit card with a small limit on it. For example three hundred for an emergency is more than enough. I would recommend that you have the full three hundred sitting in savings account. This way just in case they are irresponsible and max it out you can still pay it, before you take the card away. So what are the many benefits of giving your college student a credit card? Below is a list of some of the top benefits.
They won’t be left stranded
One of the biggest complaints among college students is that when there car breaks down, they are left stranded. Most college students do not make a large amount of money. If there car is broken down they may not have the money needed for the car. Of course this problem can be handled in different ways like providing them with a AAA card. Of course not all college students have cars so it could just be that they nee a few dollars for their monthly bus or train pass. Either way the emergency card can get them to where they need to be.
Having enough to eat
Often college students eat a lot of junk food, and often don’t have enough money to get what they need each day. Usually when they are in between pay days it can be very difficult. For example if they are all out of money on Monday, and they do not get paid until Thurs, they may need a little extra money. Those few days in between pay day can really be less stress ful if you have a few emergency dollars.
Projects sometimes require cash
Just because they are in college this does not mean that they no longer have projects that need to get done. College students also have a lot of research projects and sometimes experiments that needs to be done. In some cases they may need some extra money in order to get all of these projects and essays finished.
They will learn to handle credit
When a child first starts college they are not very responsible when it comes to handling money. If they get credit on their own, they may be just the target that credit card companies were looking for. Credit card companies often like to target kids that have just started college because they know they are more likely to run up large bills. If you give your student a set limit to work with, they may not be tempted to go and apply for their own credit. If you make them responsible for any charges that they run up, they will quickly learn that borrowed money has to be paid back.