Student loan debt

My student loan debt isn't a lot but I believe that's what's keeping my credit score so low. Is this true?

If the balance is higher than the original loan amount (high credit), that can lower your credit score.

When my spouse paid off his student loan, his score fell a bit because his sources of credit were no longer as diverse. Simply having student loans shouldn't bring your score down if you are paying in full and on time. The only way I can think of that they can hurt you is if they get transferred to a new processor and show up as though they're new loans with short repayment history and a high ratio of balance to available credit.

There should be a mixture of revolving credit and installment credit (student loan, personal loan, auto loan). If the student loans were paid off, a credit builder loan would add installment credit back on to the credit report, without going into debt.

The loans are not paid off, if they were transferred.

So let me get this right he paid off his student loans and then ended up getting a lower score then he had before

Credit is weird. The longer you have an account open that shows up on your credit report then it shows you established credit on a certain date. Once a loan is closed that date is no longer vaild in the amount of time you've had an open line of credit. Its really dumb. You would think paying it off in a certain amount of time would have a lot more meaning to it but it only contributes to the on time payments, which is also important.

Credit scores are driven by five categories which include payment history 35%, amounts owed 30%, length of credit history 15%, new credit 10%, and credit mix 10%. When focusing on raising your score you will want to be sure you are making on time payments for your debts and keeping your debt fairly low as these times make up over half of your credit score.

I will be starting college this fall, and finances are one of my biggest concerns. :(