 TITLE: How Many Credit Cards Should a College Student Have? CONTENT: How Many Credit Cards Is Considered too Many?\n---------------------------------------------\nYou're ready to add some new credit cards to your wallet—but how many? There's no specific right number of credit cards that applies to everyone. However, having several cards can help you build your credit history in a couple of ways.\nIf you only have a few accounts on your credit report (say, a student loan and one credit card), you have what's called a thin credit file. In other words, there's not a lot of evidence that you're good at managing your credit. Adding more credit accounts (such as new credit cards) helps create a better picture of how you handle credit.\nIn addition to the number of credit accounts you have, the amount of credit you're using compared with the total credit you have available is another factor in your credit score. This measure is called your credit utilization ratio.\nSuppose you have one credit card with a credit limit of $1,000. If you have a balance of $600, you're using 60% of your available credit (1,000 divided by 600). Since credit scoring models like to see 30% utilization or less, using this much can hurt your credit score.\nHowever, if you have three credit cards with a total credit limit of $3,000 and you have a total balance of $600 on all three, you're only using 20% of your available credit (3,000 divided by 600). That's much better, in creditors' eyes.\nOK, now you're convinced you need more credit cards. Before you hop online to apply, stop and ask yourself: Can you handle the urge to splurge? A wallet full of shiny new credit cards might tempt you to treat all of your friends to pizza every Friday or book a spring break trip you really can't afford. If you're still struggling to manage one credit card, or if you have a tendency to overspend in general, you should probably wait to get more credit cards until you're better at managing money. After all, you want these credit cards to help improve your credit score, not hurt it. END