If you&#x27;re generating suitable income, which many college students are not, and have a suitable credit history, which many college students do not.  Credit card companies want to make sure they&#x27;ll be repaid.  It&#x27;s pretty common for them to require parental co-signers (or just issue an additional card on the parent&#x27;s account) for people who don&#x27;t have a full-time job.<p>For a debit card - yes, you can just open a bank account and get one.  You need money in the bank account.  If you arrange a way to automatically transfer money into a kids&#x27; bank account at the touch of the button, you end up with an app much like this postmortem.