Discover it® Student Chrome review: A solid starter card with easy rewards

As a student, your focus with your first credit card should be less on maximizing your card’s value and more on building good credit habits. That being said, your first credit card will likely be what you pull out of your wallet the most while in college, so getting one with long-term value is still a good idea. 

For example, the average costs of books and supplies for the 2024 to 2025 school year at a public four-year in-state college was $1,290, according to a report by the College Board. Let’s say you put all of those purchases, plus another $1,800 in dining and restaurant purchases, on your card for the year, including the summer months. Here’s how much you would earn during your first year with your card compared to the following year:

If you want a student credit card that helps you get your feet wet building credit while also allowing you to earn rewards, the Discover it® Student Chrome is worth a look. 

Rewards: Student-centric and easy to understand

Student credit cards often come with student-centric rewards programs, which you may not be able to get with just a regular credit-building card. Dining and gas purchases are often a staple in a student budget, so this card makes earning and maximizing rewards easy.

The rewards you earn will never expire while your account is open and in good standing. You can redeem for cash back for any amount and use them instantly at Amazon.com.

The full list of redemption options includes:

• Electronic deposit into any eligible account you designate
• Statement credit to your account
• Physical or digital gift cards to partner merchants
• Pay with cash back at select merchants
• Charitable donations to select charities

Welcome offer: Best in show among student cards 

Discover’s Cashback Match program is one of the best welcome offers available on any card, not just student credit cards. While many intro offers on student cards tout small bonuses for spending a certain amount in a specified timeframe, Discover takes things up a notch by offering cardholders a dollar-for-dollar match on the rewards they earn at the end of their first year with the card.

This setup means that if you earn $150 worth of rewards in your first year with the card, Discover will match those earnings at the end of your first year, so you end up earning a total of $300. This value far surpasses a lot of what’s available on the market for student cards right now, and many other issuers don’t match this value with their student cards.

Rates and fees: A relatively low-cost card

As with many student credit cards, the Discover it® Student Chrome is fairly light on fees. You won’t pay an annual fee or foreign transaction fees, the latter of which is an added plus for students hoping to study abroad. This card also offers some leeway to fresh credit-builders as they learn the ropes with a card.

Discover waives your first late payment fee with the Discover it® Student Chrome (up to $41 fee after that). Skipping this fee the first time can offer some grace to people new to credit who are getting used to making credit card payments. However, missing a payment will still have a negative impact on your credit score.

Discover also won’t charge a penalty APR if you do miss a payment, offering new credit-builders even more room to make mistakes while building credit without incurring an excessive new interest rate.

If you want more perks and benefits and don’t mind the idea of strategizing to earn maximum rewards, some cards are easily more valuable among the options for students.

Intro APR offer: Below-average, even for student cards

The average intro APR offer runs 12 months to 21 months for some of the best cards on the market. The intro APR offer on purchases for the Discover it® Student Chrome lasts only six months. There’s also a 10.99% intro APR on balance transfers for 6 months, then a 16.74% - 25.74% Variable APR. While this is low, it's far from the best offer around.

Credit-building features: No major standouts

While the Discover it® Student Chrome is still very accessible and can help students build credit, its credit-building perks aren’t as robust as other cards.

The card does offer free access to your FICO® Scorecard and a path to graduate to a non-student card after school, which typically comes with a review for a credit line increase. A credit line increase can decrease your credit utilization ratio and improve your credit score. 

However, this is all pretty standard for credit-building cards, and some cards will even review you for a credit line increase before you graduate to a traditional card.

Other cardholder perks: Slim outside of account protections

The Discover it® Student Chrome doesn’t have much to write home about when it comes to cardholder perks. Outside of its basic functions as a credit card for students, it doesn’t have many added benefits that usually make a card more competitive like purchase protections, statement credits or complimentary access to exclusive deals and events. Other cards on the market also offer more perks, like access to issuer travel and entertainment portals or additional discount programs.

The card has some standard account protection features and also offers cardholders a free look at their FICO® credit scorecard. But overall, there’s nothing too exciting here in terms of extra card perks.

Former Bankrate credit cards editor Ashley Parks says her very first credit card was the Discover it® Student Chrome. Here’s her journey with the card so far, and how she’s still using it to her benefit to this day.

“While the Discover it® Student Chrome was my first credit card, I was afraid of using it due to misconceptions I learned from my parents, who were first-generation credit users. I missed out on a lot of old perks and benefits, but opening a credit card as a sophomore in college got me started on the right foot by establishing a credit history fairly early, which is still helpful to my credit profile today. Once I started using the card, I was able to update my employment status and salary, which let me graduate to the full-fledged Discover it® Chrome and get a higher credit limit.”

— Ashley Parks, Former editor, Bankrate

The Discover it® Student Chrome card is a solid candidate for many students who want to establish credit and manage their own finances, but it’s not the only card available. Depending on what you value most, other student cards could be more worthwhile.

The Discover it Student Chrome is a solid student card with decent rewards rates and a strong welcome bonus. This card could be a good choice for you if you’re a student who:

• Understands how credit scores work and is ready to begin establishing credit history 
• Is able to set a monthly budget and control your spending 
• Wants to take advantage of modest cash back rewards
• Wants a card from an issuer known for strong customer service 

However, if you have a study abroad trip coming up, you should check Discover’s acceptance rate in the areas you’ll visit. Although the card doesn’t charge foreign transaction fees, Discover has a marginally lower international acceptance rate than larger card networks like Visa and Mastercard.

Looking for a more rewards-centric student card? Here are a few options:

Capital One Savor Student Cash Rewards Credit Card

Capital One Savor Student Cash Rewards Credit Card

Chase Freedom Rise®

Best for flat-rate cash back

Our proprietary card rating system takes into account a mix of factors when scoring credit cards for students and people building credit, including each card’s cost, APR, credit-building tools and more.

We analyzed over 50 of the most popular cards designed for students and people with no credit history, bad credit or a fair credit score and scored each based on where its key features stood in relation to others in its category. 

Here are some of the key factors that gave this card its score: