If you have several federal educational debts, chances are, you find it difficult to repay your debts through normal repayment methods.

In this case, you can look into consolidating your loan as a method of repaying your debts in a more comfortable way.

What are the benefits of consolidating your educational debts?

• You can have a fixed interest rate that won’t be affected by future rate increases

• Student loan consolidation will extend your repayment term to up to 30 years and let you pay a lower monthly payment

What types of college debt can be consolidated?

• All federal debts

• FFELP (PLUS, Stafford, SLS)

• Others including HEAL, NSL, FISL, Guaranteed Student Loans, Direct and Health Professional Student Loans, Perkins, etc.

What if you have a private educational lender?

Private educational lenders can be consolidated and this depends upon the lender. Private lenders have their own debt consolidating policies. You can always contact your lender to discuss your options for repayment.

Sometimes it is a good idea to check with the lending company if they have repayment options that you can avail of. Some lenders actually offer alternative repayment plans that allow for your debt obligations to be lowered so you don’t have to go for debt consolidation services.

Before deciding to consolidate, you also have to compute your interest rate. Interest rates for college loan consolidation are computed to get the weighted average. This average is rounded up to the nearest 1/8 but should not go over 8.25 percent per annum.