Government Student Loans Consolidation – What’s In It For You?

By Sean Longford

If you have a lot of student loans, have you ever considered government student loans consolidation? As the cost of education continues to rise, so does the importance of a good education. In today’s world it is practically impossible to get a stable, high-paying job without a college education. For many, especially those with multiple degrees, this means that by the time their college tenure ends they are buried under many different loans, whether they are government-funded or not.

Although this is a necessary evil and a means to an end, these loans often get unmanageable. There is something you can do to help ease the burden however.

Just as with other loans, government-funded student loans can be consolidated. Consolidation simply means that you allow all of your loans to be “bought out” by a lender (possibly the lender that holds your current student loans) and turned into one large loan. This means that you can pay them all off with one monthly payment, rather than many smaller payments. This also saves you money in the short term because you will probably be making lower monthly payments, but over a longer period of time.

There are a few things you need to know before jumping into consolidation, however. First, you need to qualify. In order to qualify, you need to be in good standing on your loans. This means that you must still be within your grace period following graduation or you have made three full on-time monthly payments on each of the loans that you want consolidated. There is a little wiggle room here, but if you show some sort of responsibility it will help your chances of getting your consolidation. Remember that you are essentially applying for a new loan and that your lender will be looking at it as such. The lender will be considering your reliability and other risk factors.

Another thing to consider is the fact that you will be paying more money in the long term. Although you will save money upfront, the accumulated interest will end up costing you more over the life of the loan. Basically, while you are making smaller payments that help you cope right here and right now, little bits are being tacked onto the loan in the form of interest. Therefore, you are virtually treading water because you are only paying a little bit at a time on the principal; most of your payment goes towards paying on the interest. This is how lenders profit from making loans.

Conclusion

If you are struggling under a lot of government-funded student loans, there’s no reason for you to continue doing so. There are consolidation programs in place to help students such as you and you might as well take advantage of them. Consolidation allows you to better manage the loans because you can make one monthly payment rather than several and often the payment will be smaller than what the smaller payments added up to. Government student loans consolidation is a no-brainer for anyone with multiple government-funded student loans.

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