I paid off $600 of the total $1750 sallie mae loan opened december 2001. Payments started in july of 03 for $50 a month. In my privacy guard summary, it , along with all my inquiries are considered "moderate" hits to my score while all my tradelines are "low" hits. Is it considered moderate because i don't make monthly payments (next payment is due july 20th 04) or is it moderate because i owe more than 50% on the loan?

don't believe in any indicator you get off the PG report. Those indicators are only geared towards there own scoring model which is NO WHERE near FICO's model.

Paying off the loan probally won't touch your scores much because its an installment loan and doens't count towards your utilization.

As what was previously said, your credit utilization only factors in revolving credit. Your student loan is an installment account, so paying it off wont have much affect on your FICO score.

When you mentioned that you dont make monthly payments on it, is that because you are missing payments or is it currently deferred?

Is the loan being reported with any lates? If it is, that is probably why PG is saying its dragging your score down.