text: does anyone know whether a debt consolidation loan would affect my credit rating?   your credit rating is a measurment of how safe of an investment you are. if you have a high credit rating you are considered safe. if you have severall loans you are not necessarily considered to be an unsafe lendee. however if you miss payments or some of your loans are credit card based and near or at the credit limit you would be considered risky. money is money, and you would want to borrow money at the lowest interst rate possible. you need to look into the current interest rate you are paying and compare it to the consolidation interest rate. when a person applies for a lot of creidt in a short amount of time their credit rating is affected adversely. due to this if you are getting this consolidation loan near to another loan you received you could damage your credit rating slightly. however, paying off high interest loans with the consolidation loan and then making your payments on time would do more good than bad.