Discover It® Student Cash Back Review | Bankrate (2024)

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If you’re a student looking for a starter credit card, the Discover it® Student Cash Back offers perhaps the highest rewards rate you’re likely to find on a card for applicants with no credit history.

Having the cash back power of the full-fledged Discover it® Cash Back card plus Discover’s unique low fees makes this card a leader among student credit cards. Unless you need a card with a simpler rewards program, this Discover student card should make your short list.

• Rewards

  • 5 percent cash back on each quarter’s activated rotating categories (on up to $1,500 in combined purchases, then 1 percent)
  • 1 percent on all other purchases

  Expert Appraisal: Exceptional
  See our expert analysis

• Welcome offer

  • Discover will match all cash back earned at the end of your first year with the card.

  Expert Appraisal: Exceptional
  See our expert analysis

• 0% intro purchase APR offer

  • 0 percent APR on purchases for six months from account opening
  • 10.99 percent intro balance transfer APR for six months from date of first qualifying balance transfer
  • 18.24 percent to 27.24 percent ongoing variable APR

  Expert Appraisal: Good
  See our expert analysis

• Rates and fees

  • Annual fee: $0
  • Penalty late fee: None the first time you pay late (after that, up to $41)
  • Penalty APR: None
  • Foreign transaction fee: None

  Expert Appraisal: Good
  See our expert analysis

• Other cardholder perks

  • Online privacy protection
  • Freeze it® on/off switch on mobile app to prevent new purchases if your card is lost or stolen
  • View FICO® Credit Score free for up to 12 months with no impact on your score

  Expert Appraisal: Typical
  See our expert analysis

This card has a lot to offer students, but it’s rare to find a student card that comes with a sign-up bonus, especially one this valuable. Plus, students will continue to benefit from its ongoing value after the first year.

Rewards: Boosted cash back can put more in your pocket

A student card that offers this kind of elevated bonus rate is hard to find. Similar cards may offer a flat rate at lower value, but each quarter offers a mix of categories that you are sure to use. Even if you earn on just one of the categories each quarter, like restaurants for one quarter and gas on the next, the 5 percent cash back can add up to significant earnings when you activate.

Just remember that the 5 percent cash back rate has a $1,500 quarterly spending cap before it drops to 1 percent. Students who spend less than $500 a month on the bonus categories should have no problem staying within the spending cap to reap the great cash back rewards.

Here’s a look at the Discover earning categories for 2023. You can check out past earning categories to get an idea of what kind of revolving categories have been available with this card over time.

Welcome offer: Cash back match increases earnings value for the first year

Discover matches all the cash back you earn at the end of your first year with the card; there's no minimum spending or maximum rewards. This welcome offer differs from the typical sign-up bonus that has a spending requirement within a set time frame. Instead, this type of welcome offer allows students to focus on building credit instead of overspending for a bonus since there isn’t a limited-time spending requirement.

Cash back matching is a great incentive because many starter cards simply don’t carry welcome offers. In fact, if you spend more than $4,000 by the end of your first year across your rotating categories, you’ll earn $200 in cash back, plus another $200 with the Cashback Match™ offer. This is double the welcome offer of cards with the highest sign-up bonuses available for students.

Intro APR offer: A go-to for emergency spending

You get a fantastic chance to water down any interest you might accumulate in the case of an emergency, thanks to the card’s intro purchase APR offer. While it is best to pay off your balance in full each month to avoid credit card debt and maintain a positive credit history, the intro APR for new purchases might be what you need if your circ*mstances have suddenly changed or for an urgent large purchase. And if this isn't your first credit card, then the Discover it® Student Cash Back card offers an intro balance transfer APR that can help you manage any previous debt too.

Rates and fees: Lower fees can help build credit and manage your budget

The Discover it® Student Cash Back card has the potential to be a low-cost alternative to other credit-building options for students, such as credit-builder loans and secured credit cards. And the card gives you a safety net while you’re learning the credit card ropes — features like no penalty APRs or a late payment fee waiver the first time you pay late (then up to $41) puts this card ahead of the pack.

No annual fee means you don't have to stress about offsetting the cost every year, and if you study abroad, the card's no foreign transaction fees can come in handy.

Even after each intro period for balance transfers and purchases ends, your ongoing variable APR could be below the current average interest rate based on your creditworthiness. But its high-end APR is also lower than most cards of this type. This is a big plus, considering starter cards are notorious for their high interest rates.

This card's rewards program and welcome offer are definitely appealing, but as a rotating category card, you may not want to put in the effort to track and activate its bonus categories every few months. Plus, other cards offer better perks and added benefits.

Rotating bonus categories: High-maintenance for busy students

The Discover it® Student Cash Back card is a rotating category card, meaning it earns higher cash back rates in bonus spending categories that cycle each quarter. In exchange for higher reward rates, it also caps your 5 percent bonus category purchases at a $1,500 quarterly limit before the rate drops to 1 percent. Plus, you must remember to activate those categories each quarter.

Discover usually releases its bonus categories on a quarterly basis, so you'll have to keep up with Discover's cash back calendar to activate, which might be difficult with students' packed schedules.

If juggling these category restrictions and remembering to activate your categories each quarter doesn’t sound appealing, the Discover it® Student Chrome card and its year-round bonus categories, though less rewarding, might be a bit easier to handle.

Perks: Card protection but little else

Discover has top-notch credit-building and card-protection features like free FICO Credit Scorecard access, spending summary reports and in-depth credit monitoring that scours the dark web for your Social Security number. Discover automatically provides these credit monitoring services at no charge.

Also, ​​Discover's high level of credit card customer service has landed it a top spot in the renowned J.D. Power Credit Card Satisfaction Survey for five of the past seven years.

However, the card doesn't offer much else in extra perks. Added benefits like extended warranty coverage, statement credits, complimentary memberships, travel insurance, or roadside assistance are not available with this card. If you need a card packed with extra perks and benefits, you might need to look elsewhere or wait until you can graduate to a non-student card that offers these perks, usually with an annual fee.

Despite offering limited perks, Kyle Olsen, a travel rewards and loyalty expert at The Points Guy, won’t be giving up his Discover it® Student Cash Back anytime soon.

The card is worthwhile due to its benefits tailored specifically for students. It offers cash back rewards on purchases (with a generous cash back match at the end of your first year) and no foreign transaction fees. Additionally, the card has no annual fee and offers tools to help students build credit responsibly. I’ll keep mine indefinitely as my oldest credit line.

— Kyle Olsen, Reporter, The Points Guy

When evaluating the best cash back cards, we consider a mix of factors, including how cards score in our proprietary card rating system and whether cards offer features that fit the priorities of a diverse group of cardholders, from earning rewards in popular categories to scoring a large sign-up bonus or high-value perks. Whenever possible, we also feature cards that are available at various credit levels and price points.

We analyzed over 150 of the most popular cards and scored each based on its rewards rate, estimated annual earnings, welcome bonus value, APR, fees, perks and more to determine whether it belonged in this month’s roundup of the best cash back cards.

Here are some of the key factors that we considered:

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