<prompt> Human: Its pretty much all there in the title.I woke up one morning and realized my savings surpassed an adequate emergency fund by enough to knock out one of my smaller student loans with the absolute highest interest rate. So, duh, I called Sallie Mae up and asked how to go about paying it off. They didnt give me any trouble whatsoever and gave me the information I needed to pay it off.I guess I should talk about the loan. It was a private loan with an outstanding balance of about 3,000 with an 11.25 interest rate.At any rate, that was in May. I recently checked my credit score and discovered that it has been steadily sinking since then. Ive had no lifestylespending habit changes at all but my credit score has taken a hit of 17 points since paying off the loan. Im assuming this was some sort of penalty for paying it off early but I dont understand the mechanics behind how they would go about doing that and Im positive I asked about any penalties before moving along with this.Is this common? I guess I should have done more research before taking the plunge but I got too excited about knocking 100 off of my monthly payment and just did it.Edit: Thanks everyone! Also, did I violate some condition of the board? I got like two automoderator replies telling me to visit the FAQ. I DID!  <response>: You made the right choice: you do not need to pay a dime more in interest than you have to. Your score should not be taking a hit, this could be a red herring. Its possible your monthly utilization has increased, or it could involve a number of other factors. Continue to make on time payments and ignore the ebbs and flows. 