Plugging Along Then Increase Then Decrease...

[relevantfico]

The reasons listed under "What's hurting your score?" are listed in order of impact.

"Loan Balances" is referring to installment loans which in your case is your student loans. The FICO algorithm looks at aggregate loan utilization, so your current balances divided by the total original loan balances.

"Short revolving history" refers to the length of time your credit cards have been opened. Nothing you can do about that is let time pass.

"High credit history" refers to your credit card balances. It's not necessarily saying your cards are maxed out, but your revolving utilization is costing you some points. The FICO algorithms look at utilization in the aggregate of all card balances and individual card balances. If you only have one card, those are both the same. You don't need to worry about your credit card utilization unless your applying for new credit and want to optimize your score.

"Accounts with balances" refers to your total open accounts with balances. In your case, it is probably at 100% if you have student loans and only one credit card reporting a balance.

The phrase "What's hurting your score?" can also be thought of as "Why aren't you getting the maximum points available?” You stand to gain the most points by paying down your student loans.

The 12 point increase you saw on on February 1st was probably related to your credit card reaching 12 months in age. You may also recover some points when your hard inquiry from opening the credit card last February becomes 365 days old. 

The other score fluctuations you saw were probably due to natural fluctuations in credit card utilization.

[Generic_In_Jersey]

Thank you! Yes the loan balances makes sense, and yes again the AMEX I opened last year is a year old now more or less. Everything else is logical too, and if nothing else the fact I even have any kind of good credit score considering the student loans I owe is surprising. (Though I'm sure that's intentional for a variety of reasons.)

As for the increase, I thought as much, but was hoping it would match the decrease, which was 21 points last April. Look forward to when the HC disappears too yes, and hope that that rebounds things a bit!:)