A student should always, once through college, initiate steps to consolidate their student loans. This article details the benefits available to graduates, parents or students who take those steps.

The Consolidation of Student Loans Brings Reduced Payments

When a student gets all his or her loans under the same Social Security number, then the government will agree to consolidate those student loans. The student’s individual loans are paid off, giving the student one large loan.

Moreover, when the government takes steps to consolidate student loans, it also takes two other important steps: It extends the loan and it lowers the loan rate.

There is not set way by which a loan provider can bring down the rate on a consolidated loan. A reputable loan provider carefully examines all the possible ways that a student’s rate might be made lower.

The loan provider then establishes that low rate as the rate for a consolidated and extended loan.

The government’s willingness to both extend the loan and to lower the rate can save students considerable money. Although the payment schedule has been extended, the person with the consolidated loan can feel free to pay the loan off ahead of schedule.

In other words, there is no prepayment penalty levied on those who make an early pay-off after choosing to consolidate student loans.

Two More Reasons to Consolidate Student Loans

It was mentioned above that the rate on a consolidated loan is lower than the rate on each of the original loans. Besides being lower, that rate is also fixed. The rate on a Stafford or Perkins Loan is variable.

The rate on a consolidated loan does not change during the course of the loan.

A student with a consolidated loan does not need to spend time keeping track of the payment schedule for two, three or more loans. That student loan recipient can just make a single monthly payment.

Often the student elects to make that single payment through an automatic debit. That can decrease the loan rate by another 0.25%.

Still Other Reasons to Consolidate Student Loans

Gradate students who consolidate student loans can learn then about fellowships and graduate school loans. Parents who consolidate their loans can search for free money or private loans. Those benefits come on top of the loan’s lower interest rate.

When you consolidate student loans, you provide yourself with a chance to improve your credit score. No graduate wants to face credit problems that have been caused by his or her need to take out loans in order to cover college expenses.

In light of all the above benefits, students should ask this question:

Who Can Qualify for the Program to Consolidate Student Loans?

Before allowing a student to consolidate student loans, the government looks to see if the student or graduate owes $10,500 or more.

The government also checks to see if the loan recipient has any loans in default.

By: Martin Haworth

If you’re a former student or a college parent with any outstanding federal student loans, you may be able to get up to 20 more years to repay just by consolidating your eligible federal parent or student loans. With that longer repayment term, since you have more time to repay, the amount you have to pay each month will typically go down. You may be able to cut your monthly student loan payments by up to 42% — just by consolidating!

Cut Your Payments on Your Student Loans by up to 42%

Here’s an example of how you can lower your monthly student loan payments when you consolidate your federal college loans and take advantage of a longer repayment term: Estimated monthly payments on a $75,000 student loan consolidation fixed at 7.25% and repaid over an extended term of 30 years are $512, versus estimated monthly payments of $879 on a $75,000 Federal Stafford Loan issued at 7.22% and repaid over 10 years — that’s a 41.8% reduction in monthly payment amount. (Your actual payment reduction may vary and will depend on the terms of the parent or student loans you’re consolidating.)

Get More Time to Repay Your Student Loans

Federal PLUS parent loans and Stafford student loans are issued with standard repayment terms of 10 years. You may be able to get up to 30 years to repay these federal parent and student loans when you consolidate them into a student loan consolidation.

How long you get to repay will depend on the total outstanding balance of your education debt: If your outstanding education debt totals $20,000 – $39,999, you’ll have 20 years to pay back your student loan consolidation.? If your outstanding education debt totals $40,000 – $59,999, you’ll have 25 years. If you have $60,000 or more in education debt when you consolidate your federal student loans, you’ll have 30 years to pay back your Federal student loan consolidation.

No Fees. No Credit Checks. No Prepayment Penalties.

Even though you can get more time to repay your federal parent and student loans by consolidating, there are no prepayment penalties on a Federal Consolidation Loan, so you won’t be assessed any additional fees for paying more than the minimum each month or for paying off your student loan consolidation early, should you choose to.

There are also no application fees, no processing fees, and no credit checks when you consolidate through the federal student loan consolidation program.

Replace Your Variable-Rate Student Loans With a Fixed-Rate Consolidation Loan

If you took out your Federal PLUS Loans or Stafford Loans prior to July 1, 2006, those loans are subject to variable interest rates that will adjust every year. So when interest rates rise, your monthly student loan payments may also go up. But you can put an end to rate increases and rising payments when you consolidate your parent or student loans.

The federal student loan consolidation program gives you the security of a fixed interest rate. By consolidating your federal

student loans, you’ll replace your variable-rate college loans with a fixed-rate consolidation loan, so you won’t have to worry about interest rates rising and leaving you guessing about your monthly payment amount.

Make Just One Payment for All Your Federal Student Loans

If you have multiple student loans in repayment and you’re dealing with the hassle of multiple bills, multiple due dates, and multiple monthly payments to multiple lenders, a Federal Consolidation Loan could help make your student loan repayment easier to manage.

With the federal student loan consolidation program, you can bundle all your eligible federal parent or student loans into one single consolidation loan with just one monthly bill, one lender, and one monthly payment that’s fixed for the life of your consolidation loan.

Consolidate Your Private Student Loans

If you have private student loans in addition to your federal student loans, you won’t be able to consolidate your private student loans under the federal student loan consolidation program. But you may be able to consolidate your private student loans separately with a Private Consolidation Loan, which offers the same convenience of a single consolidated loan for your private student loans.

By: Jeff Mictabor

The best time to start getting information about bad credit student loans and student loan consolidation is your junior year in high school. In order to determine the exact amount of the loan that you would require, you should research thoroughly on the various available schools, and also on the courses in which you are interested. You need to properly plan out your bad credit student loan so as to obtain it easily. A bad credit student loan is particularly helpful when the universities require the students to pay the tuition fees immediately.

Many students are not able to pay for their education, and thus they need student loans. Students with a bad credit can also need bad credit student loans. However, the main disadvantage of bad credit student loans is that a higher rate of interest has to be paid on them. Thus, you must collect a lot of information about the student loans before applying for one.

Students who are looking for a bad credit student loan should pick three schools they are most interested in, talk to the admissions office, and ask what is needed to apply in their school.

A bad credit student loan is payable only after the student has completed his or her education, and has started earning a certain minimum amount. Since April 2005, the minimum amount that the candidate of the bad credit student loan is required to earn has also increased. Bad credit student loans are available as both secured and unsecured loans, depending on whether you are a homeowner or not. The rate of interest to be paid on unsecured bad credit student loans is higher than that on secured bad credit student loans. This is because the secured bad credit student loans are backed by your home as a security.

Why Should I Consider Student Loan Consolidation Now?

Student loan consolidation can have many benefits for the career minded student. Many students don’t have thousands of dollars to pay their way through college.

This is why many college students use student loans to get themselves through college. When it comes time to pay back their student loans, it can be a real burden and a distraction from their career.

You should know how to get the best student loan consolidation rate and plan for your credit situation.

What Is Student Loan Consolidation?

When a student first applied for several student loans from several different agencies and student loan providers, they each gave a different interest rate and term for paying back the loans. The idea of student loan consolidation, is to take all the different student loans and put them into one easy convenient loan. You then only have to make one monthly loan payment every month, instead of several loan payments every month over time. Having less checks to write every month is just one benefit of doing a loan consolidation.

The loan rates offered will be based on your financial situation and credit. With a FICO credit score under 600, it can be a challenge to get good rates and plans.

3 Benefits You Can Get With Student Loan Consolidation

1. Lower Monthly Payments. Depending on your credit situation and the type of lender you choose, you may be able to lower your monthly payments by up to 50%

2. Having Fixed Interest Rates. With some federal consolidation loans you can have a fixed rate for the life of your student loan. You can check online to calculate the interest rate on a new student loan consolidation based on the rates of your current student loans.

3. Extending Your Payment Period. You may have a lot of student loan debt. With federal consolidation loans you may be able to extend the payment term up to 30 years. It’s a good idea to realize you will end up paying more interest over the life of your student loan consolidation. The idea is to get some leverage until your career takes off.

Online Resources To Help With Bad Credit Student Loans And Student Loan Consolidation?

With today’s Internet resources, you have an advantage when looking for bad credit student loans and consolidation of your student loans. If you take the time now to do research on the process of getting a bad credit student loan or consolidation , you may be able to avoid some of the hassles of getting approved.

There are many websites with services that can help to make it easier to see if you can qualify. These sites have many tools and information to help you get the best interest rates available for your credit situation.

By: Dean Shainin