Loan consolidation is something many students have found really useful.
Combining all your loans into one loan has a lot of positive points,
but it also carries a few risks. Let's go over some of the pros and cons of consolidation.
One definite pro is that consolidation gives you just one monthly payment to make.
You may have several loans being handled by several different servicers.
That means you have to make several separate payments each month.
Consolidation combines all those loans into a single loan handled by a single loan servicer.
This leads to another pro: you can choose your loan servicer,
one that best suits your own situation.
There are many other advantages to consolidating your loans.
Check out the PDF at the end of this course section for more.
Consolidation also has a few cons.
It can increase the length of your repayment period,
meaning you'll pay more interest over the life of the loan.
And the interest rate on your combined loan may be higher...
...than the rates on some of your individual loans.
Another thing to keep in mind is that you can't consolidate your private loans.
Federal loans only.
So before you go ahead and consolidate your loans,
make sure you have the complete picture of what your payment schedule,
interest rate and total costs will be after consolidation.
If you think you're ready to consolidate, simply log into your student loan account...
...at studentloans.gov and begin the online consolidation application.
Keep in mind that you will need to continue to make your regular payments...
... until your consolidation application is fully processed.
And, by the way, this is a FREE service for your federal student loans.
So if you get a so-called deal in the mail from someone offering to do it for a fee,
put that offer in the recycle bin.