<p>Do any of you have pros/cons about setting up a bank account for your college kid near the school vs. in your hometown?</p>
<p>Many of the schools have programs with particular banks that offer free checking and savings to students at that school. See what ATMs are on campus, or nearby, so they won't have to pay a fee to get cash.</p>
<p>There is not one bank that has branches both in our home city and in my daughter's college city. I had hoped to have the account here and for her to be able to use the ATM there...</p>
<p>Best scenario is a bank with close to/on campus locations and also in your hometown. Easy to add money to a local bank- I have deposited those checks from relatives son never got around to depositing when he was home. When a student lives in varied places each year, eg dorms and apts, having a permanent hometown address is also useful. College towns will be used to out of town checks/banks and there should be on campus places to cash them. ATM usage may dictate your choice to avoid transaction fees.</p>
<p>If there isn't a good option both in your hometown and on campus...we have found BofA is everywhere around the colleges. They have a campusedge account that there are lots of threads about. Seems to work well for most kids. You can get a low limit credit card that can be paid online directly from the checking. They also have a plan you can choose where they round up ATM purchases and dump the change into a savings account.<br>
There is no BofA in our hometown but I have been able to paypal, mail a check, put money on my kids college account online in order to send him funds when needed.</p>
<p>check with the college. My son's school allows students to cash checks in the finance office up to $50 at a time. My son found that he rarely used his atm card. He banked at a bank that was in his college town but had no atm on campus. We would just send him a check or he could write a check to himself and cash it on campus.
My son's school also allows students to purchase textbooks and put them on their student account bill so he could have easily got by without a checking account or a credit card.</p>
<p>B of America is in our town and has an ATM on S's campus across the country. It will be quite convenient for me to make deposits into his account. B of A turned my S down for the low-limit credit card, however. They say he doesn't "have sufficient established revolving credit accounts." He has a student checking account and several thousand dollars in savings there, so what is their problem? Of course he doesn't have credit accounts -- that is the point of a low limit student account, to get them started.</p>
<p>He is also going to open a student savings account at the university credit union where he will be attending college. They will automatically give him a credit card with a pretty generous limit. He doesn't imagine using it much, but I want him to have the credit card so that he can order things online, like plane tickets. He will be using his money to pay for these things, and I don't need to be the middleman anymore. He is very responsible and I know that he will pay it off every month. If he doesn't, then he'll learn about paying interest.</p>
<p>Check out credit unions. If they have the double triangle with "co-op" inside printed on the back of the ATM/Debit/check card you can deposit and withdraw for free. CO-OP</a> Financial Services</p>
<p>If you do online banking you can set up external transfers from your bank to the bank that your student banks at. This can be a different bank, one that has atm's on or near campus. At my bank this service is free and can be set up monthly or for single use.</p>
<p>Our son has bank accounts in both our state and in the state where he's going to school. He has his stipend checks direct deposited into the account in our state and then he sometimes makes out a check from that account payable to his account at school, as he only uses the ATM at school. The account in our state is what he uses to fund his Roth IRA and other investments. This also allows for either of us to be able to deposit his gift checks into an account of his. Having the account at school is good as he was easily able to do things like get British pounds for a business trip he took last week (and again, for an ATM with no charge to get money out). His account at school was also interesting in that even though he was 14, they let him open an account (complete with checking and I believe a credit card) with no co-signer, which I didn't even realize was legal as it's not like his signature is legal till he turns 18, I don't think, but the manager at the school bank said something like, "Any student here is mature enough not to need a co-signer; we trust they are good for the checks they write." And I could tell our son was happy to have an account that was truly "all his own" (as in not needing me to be any way responsible for what he does with the money in the account). Our son has financially been on his own since before he moved out of the house, but if a child isn't, having an easy way to transfer money from your account to the child's would be important.</p>
<p>Kid used his Citi-India card at our local 7-11 Store's Citi ATM, and successfully withdrew US$400+ and effectively closed this account.</p>
<p>I've done both, and I think it's easier to bank at school. This is especially true if he may end up spending summers near his college. There is no bank in common between my hometown and my college town besides B of A, which I don't think is a very good bank and I wouldn't feel comfortable putting my money there (but that's another story! YMMV). If your son ends up returning home for the summer to work, he can always just set up a simple account to put his summer earnings in and then transfer the money at the end of the summer. </p>
<p>On the other hand, if he's going to college somewhere where he doesn't expect to need much money, especially cash, and he isn't planning on spending summers near campus, it may make more sense to stick with a bank at home if he's happy with the one he's at now.</p>
<p>DD has BoA accounts here at home and was able to get a rewards VISA without a problem. She also has an account at school as BoA which has a large presence in DE (miles of offices) actually has very few branches/ATMS. They even fund the career center on the UD campus but the closest ATM is a few miles away in a gas station.<br>
She deposits her work checks in the local account to cover her expenses at school. If she needed more she would deposit a check from the BoA account, but that hasn't happened.</p>
<p>Our bank is in Texas, we live in NY, the kid is in Pittsburgh. With online banking and ATMs (our bank pays fees for six withdrawals a month from other banks) it really doesn't matter where your bank is.</p>
<p>If you normally use a Credit Union, ask them whether they participate in the Credit Union Service Center network. [url=<a href="http://www.cuservicecenter.com/%5DCUServiceCenter.com%5B/url">http://www.cuservicecenter.com/]CUServiceCenter.com[/url</a>] Your and your student may be able to manage his/her credit union account long-distance this way.</p>
<p>mathmom-
Do you use USAA for yoru checking? How does that work for you? We are thinking of settingup a USAA cking account so DS can get funds (our bank doesnt have branches in his college)but I want sure how smoothly thigns work with the USAA accounts. We would have to set up a way to transfer money into his USAA account (we dont currently have cking though USAA).</p>
<p>Lazybum-
I am a bit confused. Are you saying a bank in Boston let him set up a checking account without an adult over 18 cosigning? It isnt about trusting that he's mature enough to handle it-- I dont think it is legal or within banking regulations to allow a minor to sign a contract to open an account. Perhaps it is somehow linked to another account that you have cosigned with him, but we were told by the banks when we set up our sons accounts that as long as they were under 18 we had no choice but to have to be on the account with them.</p>
<p>JYM626,
don't have a USAA checking, but do have pre paid spending cards for our kids through USAA. You can transfer money onto them from a non USAA account very easily online. It's nice cause they can use it for online shopping, ATM withdrawals, pretty much anything you can use a credit card for. No fees for it and we can check online easily to see what the money is being spent on. I know USAA has teen checking now-haven't tried it so I can't vouch for it, but it's one option we're considering for college. I think USAA has a lot of options now for depositing checks to make things go smoothly.</p>
<p>Thanks, prefect- I'll look into those. I am spoiled by older s's being able to use our home bank when he was in college. By happenstance I discovered at the time he was going to college that the bank (Wachovia) was just setting up branches in TX, and as an incentive to open accounts there, they were waiving ATM fees for up to $6 a month or so (like USAA) for fees charged by other banks, and would not charge ATM fees on his account. It was a fluke, but a great find, and is still a benefit on his account (he's now in FL). Fortunately, I think there is a Wachovia near where he has just moved (as of yesterday!) in FL.</p>
<p>DD uses a different bank at school and at home since we did not have comparable easy access ones in both places. She just uses internet transfers when she needs to move money between the accounts. It really is pretty easy as long as you anticipate and give it a couple of days. I put money in the one at home. She moves it when she needs it.</p>
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[quote]
I am a bit confused. Are you saying a bank in Boston let him set up a checking account without an adult over 18 cosigning? It isnt about trusting that he's mature enough to handle it-- I dont think it is legal or within banking regulations to allow a minor to sign a contract to open an account. Perhaps it is somehow linked to another account that you have cosigned with him, but we were told by the banks when we set up our sons accounts that as long as they were under 18 we had no choice but to have to be on the account with them.
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Unless this is a new regulation from the last year or two, I don't think that this is correct. I opened a number of accounts before I turned 18 (and I'm currently 19, so we're not talking all that long ago), and the bank I used to work at opened solo accounts for under-18s. After I left there was a new regulation that did keep them from offering debit cards to youths. It's possible that the rules have changed, of course.</p>