This is what’s considered a ‘bad’ credit score—and what to do if you have one

A credit score is an important measure of financial health. It signifies your trustworthiness to financial institutions and can help determine how easy, or how expensive, it is for you to buy a home or a car, or to rent an apartment. A good one could even help you get a date.

So it's important, if you can, to take steps to improve your score. But the factors that determine a good or bad one aren't widely understood: 25 percent of millennials don't even know what a credit score is, according to a LendEdu survey.