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Check Your Credit Score

Now that you're engaging in life after your degree, it's a good time to start checking your credit score, which has ramifications on the interest rates you'll face when buying a car, house, etc., and may even have an effect on your employment.  In particular, employers for certain financial or investigative positions may not hire you if you have a medium to low credit score.

The most commonly used credit score at the moment is the Fair Isaac Corporation basic (FICO) score, which is a measure of your likelihood of defaulting on a credit account.  Invented in 1956, the FICO score ranges from low of 300 to a high 850, with a median score that ranges from the very high 600s to the low 700s, depending on the status of the economy.  To see your score, go directly to the FICO Web site or the credit bureaus, all of which charge about $15 per report:

A good rule of thumb is to get your credit score above 700, which is about average, and to keep it there.

There are other scores as well:  The Fair Isaac Corporation offers variations on its FICO score, each of the credit bureaus has its own proprietary score, and there are other 3rd-party scores as well, such as NextGen, VantageScore, and the CE Score.  However, these are still relatively new and, as such, are used in specific circumstances rather than generally, so it is not necessary to check these scores unless you have a specific reason to do so.

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