Chase Freedom® Student credit card review: Solid intro to Ultimate Rewards

While the Chase Freedom Student card was a solid choice for building credit and earning rewards, the Discover it® Student Cash Back offers a chance at more cash back while still charging no annual fee. You can earn 5 percent cash back in rotating categories upon enrollment (on up to $1,500 in purchases per quarter, then 1 percent back) and Discover will match all the rewards you have earned at the end of your first year. 

However, busier students may find this card to be a hassle when trying to keep up with Discover’s activation schedule. The Discover 2024 calendar could help you get a glimpse into the next quarter, but it doesn’t reveal the cash back categories for the full year. This can make it difficult to plan your spending ahead of time. Despite the restrictions for earning 5 percent cash back on select categories like quarterly activation and the spending cap, you’ll still earn 1 percent back on all purchases, matching the Chase Freedom Student Unlimited card.

The Discover it® Student Cash Back may also be easier to obtain since it doesn’t require a credit history. Discover also offers a 0 percent intro APR for new purchases for six months and a 10.99 percent intro APR on balance transfers for six months (then the standard variable APR of 18.24 percent to 27.24 percent applies), making this a great card if you have existing debt or large purchases coming up.

The Capital One Quicksilver Rewards for Students earns unlimited 1.5 percent cash back on all purchases, more than the Chase Freedom Student’s 1 percent on all purchases. Additionally, with the Quicksilver you can get 10 percent cash back on Uber and Uber Eats, plus a monthly credit for your Uber One membership fee through November 14, 2024 — making it a great option for students needing to travel outside of campus or ordering takeout.

Not only that, you can earn a one-time $50 cash bonus after a $100 spend on purchases within three months from account opening. The Quicksilver card also features no foreign transaction fees (See Rates and Fees), unlike the Chase Freedom Student, making it a suitable choice for students who plan to study abroad or travel internationally. 

Overall, the Capital One Quicksilver Cash Rewards for Students Card offers students simplicity, better rewards and more versatility, making it a preferable alternative to the Chase Freedom Student Card.

The Discover it® Student Cash Back card could be a smart option as it offers a good variety of bonus categories that change every quarter. Pairing it with the Chase Freedom Student card could help you maximize your cash back earnings across a wider range of categories.

A student or credit-building card’s cost has a large influence on its overall score. 

Students already face a ton of expenses, so extra card costs are best avoided if possible, and people with limited or damaged credit tend often find the cards they can qualify for are much pricier than traditional credit cards designed for people with a good or better credit score. 

We compare a card’s total cost, including any annual fees, account activation fees, monthly fees and more against the total cost of other cards in this category and assign each card a score based on its affordability. We also factor rewards-earning potential into our assessment of a credit-building card’s total cost, subtracting a card’s expected earnings from the sum of its fees. 

To get a sense of a card’s rewards-earning potential, we estimate its average annual rewards rate and average annual earnings based on the most popular spending categories (as covered in the latest Bureau of Labor Statistics consumer spending report). 

However, we use a slightly lower spending assumption ($300 per month or $3,600 per year) to estimate average earnings, assuming students and credit-builders will start out with a lower credit limit, will want to keep credit utilization low and will focus primarily on small purchases they can easily pay off.

Given the many costs students face — from textbooks to laptops — the presence of an introductory APR on purchases or balance transfers also plays a role in a student card’s score.

A card’s APR is also a major factor in its credit-building score. Each card’s average APR is compared against the average APR of other cards in the category, and the cards with lower-than-average APRs receive a higher rating. 

Though high APRs are hard to avoid when you’re just starting out or working on your score, credit-builders should strive for as low an APR as possible since they’re likely to either be new to managing cards or trying to establish better financial habits and avoid falling into debt.

Along with a credit-building card’s cost, our rating system takes into account how easy the card makes it to build credit. To assess this, we evaluate its credit limit potential and minimum deposit requirement.

Unsecured cards with a high starting credit limit and secured cards that let you put down a large deposit and get a matching high credit limit will score the highest according to our “Ease of building credit” rubric and are more likely to appear on our list. 

This is because a high credit limit can make it much easier to keep your credit utilization low, a primary credit-building factor that makes up 30 percent of your FICO credit score. 

Secured cards have a slight advantage in this category since the maximum credit limit on a secured card tends to be much higher than the typical starting credit limit on an unsecured card that’s available with a bad or fair credit score. However, unsecured credit-building cards have the upper hand in another key aspect of building credit: accessibility. 

Cards that carry no or a low deposit requirement can also receive a high score according to our “Ease of building credit” rubric since these cards offer a lower barrier to entry than secured cards that require you to put up hundreds of dollars in an upfront deposit. 

Indeed, some users may prefer to pay a non-refundable $50 annual fee while they work on their credit score than tie up hundreds in a refundable security deposit.

We also evaluate each card’s benefits based on how useful they are for students or someone looking to build a positive credit history and save money on everyday spending. 

We consider the inclusion of a rewards program, student-centric perks and access to your credit score or a credit monitoring service of prime importance, along with the ability to prequalify for the card with only a soft credit pull and a clear path to increase your credit limit or graduate to an unsecured or full-fledged rewards card.

Cards that include these benefits are likely to score higher according to our credit-building card scoring rubric.

The Chase Freedom Student Card is no longer accepting applications, as it is no longer on the market. It has been replaced by the Chase Freedom Rise Card. To qualify for the Freedom Rise instead, make sure you learn about application requirements and obtain relevant proof of enrollment in school. 

Typically, you must show proof of enrollment as a student when you apply for a student card. For those under 21, you can apply with a co-signer and proof of income. For those over 21, get proof of your own personal income or assets. From there, submit your application with all the necessary documents.

Chase recommends having a good to excellent credit score for potential approval (670+ on the FICO scale). The card was also a feasible option for people with limited credit histories (not the same as bad credit) given the emphasis on students and student-centric benefits. If you’ve made mistakes with your credit in the past and are looking for a card to help you rebuild your score, the Freedom Student may not have been the best choice.

Possibly. If you were under the age of 21, you could have applied with a co-signer and proof of income.