Graduates leave a life style of paying a small amount for rent and food and begin looking for homes, clothes for a new job, a car for that job and other necessary requirements, to begin their new life, and of course, repayment for that school loan.

This is when many people make poor decisions and get into trouble affecting their present and future. Some former students after a while, are faced with defaulting on their student loans, others take out more and more credit cards or loans to keep going.

What students should remember is that they need to start out very slow and live similar as to college life until their wages increase to the point where they can add to their new after-college-life-style. Poor credit history can affect the rest of your life.

As you grow older and need help with a loan the first issue any loan office will examine is the FICO score. The FICO is a total score calculated by the main credit agencies based how late payments were made such as 30 days, 60 days or longer.

Also, the amount of credit available, the number of credit inquiries and other factors are all added up. A default payment on a secret proprietary formula, though the exact equation is not public, multiple criteria are will known and even obvious.

FICO scores are calculated mostly on debt defaults and the amount of late repayments. Both of these are counted very heavily against you. Next is the number of personal credit inquiries. This is where the importance of repaying your student loans on time, on a regular basis is so important.

A negative history of repaying your student loans is evidence of a poor credit risk in the minds of the lenders. Also, staying within your available credit limits and avoiding over limit shows a disposition to defer current gratification and take responsibility.

Creditors are judging not just numbers but also character as well in any decision. Meet all of your credit obligations and keeping all borrowing to a modest level for a period of time makes you look like a very good risk to loan officers.

This means funding any student loan will be that much easier. Keep this in mind also when considering any student loan consolidation.