Shortly after you graduate you’re going to have to start
making payments to the various lenders you borrowed from.
The problems that many Americans face, however, is that
they struggle to pay off their debt in whole or in part
and get caught up in a hopeless cycle of late payments
and late fees. This is where student loan
consolidation can help
So what exactly is student loan consolidation?
In a nutshell, consolidating your student loans is a way
to refinance your existing student loans and combine them
into one new loan. The key benefit of this is that your
interest rate and monthly payments can be significantly
reduced. You could in fact end up saving thousands of dollars.
The federal government, in its efforts to provide accessible
and affordable education for all, has set low and fixed
interest rates on all federal student loans and is also
offering a student loan consolidation program with flexible
repayment schedule and reduced interest rates.
All the advantages of loan consolidation are available to you:
you make a single payment every month instead of the several
payments you initially had, the amount of money you pay is
lower than the sum of amounts you had on your previous loans
and there is only one lender that you make the payment to.
Also, applying for a student loan consolidation program is
an easy process that does not involve any credit checks and
does not require you to pay any additional fees or charges.
Advantages and disadvantages of a student loan consolidation
program With the student loan consolidation program you get
all the advantages that come with rolling several different
loans into one. The interest rate is lower than the average
of your previous interest rates, which means you can actually
save money while you are repaying the loan, and it is not
subject to change for the duration of your repayment schedule.
The repayment plan is flexible, you can extend the period
you need to pay back the loan, or you can choose to pay the
entire sum earlier with no additional prepayment penalties.
There is also the option of making the payments online which
decreases the rate of interest by 0.25% and also keeps you
constantly up to date with the details of your repayment status.
There are, however, a few disadvantages. For instance,
before applying for a student loan consolidation program you
need to do the math of your existing loans properly. If some
of your loans have extremely low rates of interest it is
not advisable to consolidate them because after they are
averaged with the interest rates of your other loans the rate
will increase and you will end up paying more money.
In this situation it is better to pay your low interest loans
separately and only consolidate your other student loans.
Also, always keep in mind the repayment schedule flexibility
offered by the student loan consolidation program.
You can stretch the payments to a period of 30 years, but
it is advisable that you prepay the loan if such an
opportunity arises. This will save you the interest added
in time, therefore meaning that the amount you prepay is
much lower than the overall sum you would pay in 30 years.
The student loan consolidation program is an effective tool
in simplifying your repayment schedules and lowering your
interest rates.

