Apurva Shree asked:


A student loan consolidation program is a lucrative and efficient way for students to deal with student debt. In the pursuit of higher education, many find their student loans accumulate until they are left with a sizable amount to repay when they graduate.

Many students opt for student loan debt counseling in order to find the best way to deal with their debt issues. A common way to deal with accumulated debts is a student debt consolidation package. This allows the borrower to merge all student loans into a single loan with a single set of monthly payments.

What Consolidation Can Do For You

Before learning more about the student loans consolidation process, it is helpful to understand how so many students end up with heavy student debts in the first place. By amassing numerous loans from different lenders, students often find themselves saddled with the task of making multiple payments each month, each one with a different interest rate. Missing a payment can affect their credit rating and lead to further financial stress.

By opting for a student loan consolidation program, you no longer have to deal with the frustration of making multiple payments to different lenders. All your loans are consolidated into a single loan that has a fixed lower interest rate. This means that you just make one payment per month with no hassles.

Flexibility and Convenience

A student loan consolidation program offers much more than just the convenience of a single payment per month. By locking your interest rate, you don’t have to worry about having to shell out extra money in the future. This can save a good deal of money in the long run, which can make a huge difference in your financial future, particularly when you are starting out on a new career.

Another advantage of having a student loan consolidation program is that it offers you repayment options. Some programs give borrowers the option of extending their loan repayment period up to 20 years. A student loan consolidation program also allows you to deal with your debt on your own terms. If you find yourself in a position to deal with your debt payments quickly, you can do so without incurring any penalty charges. This can be especially useful for graduates who are expecting good employment opportunities.

If you find yourself in a position where you are unsure of how to tackle your debt issues, get some student loan debt counseling and find out what kind of student loan consolidation program will work for you. Streamlining your debt issues and finding a student debt consolidation package that suits your needs can make a big difference in your financial future.

Ernesto Maitim asked:


While there seems to be an urgent need to consolidate student loans, there are really times when to get student loan consolidation programs should be deferred. Borrowers with merged debts might be qualified for such deferment benefits; this actually depends on the student’s personal circumstances. For example, you might have exhausted your privilege to defer on your government debts. However, this should not be a cause for you to fret.  One you merge your multiple loans, this allows you to obtain more options to defer.

So, when is the most appropriate time to consolidate student loans? The best time should be after the borrower has graduated from college. For students, their loans will be due around 6 months after graduation. This is the standard grace period, and is a good time for the borrower to get his debts organized and even be merged via student loan consolidation programs.

Within the six months, you can perform all that is necessary to ready up your loans for merging. However, the actual consolidation should not be until after six months grace period. With the unmerged loans, the federal government should be the one responsible for loan interest payments during the six months. However, if you decide to consolidate student loans with your grace period, you and you alone have the responsibility of immediately paying your loan.

Another thing, before getting into student loan consolidation programs, there are important facts that should be known about college debts. It is important to distinguish the private from the federal student loans. Private student loans have a much higher rate of interest than the government debts. This is because the former is considered unsecured while the governments loans are government-backed by the government.

This fact only means that federal student loans have a lower rate than the private debts when refinancing. Most students both have these two kinds of debts. And definitely you may refinance them. However, it is a must that you do not mix these two loans. Consolidate these two groups of student debts separately to retain the benefits that one can gain from them.

For more student loan consolidation programs and college debt consolidation articles, do visit our Easy College Loan Consolidation blog.