Your college or university days may be behind you but if you received

For starters consolidation allows you to simplify the repayment process by combining several types of federal education loans into one government student loan consolidation so you make just one payment a month. The benefit to this is that your new monthly payment may even be lower than what you’re currently paying.

Typically student loans are paid over a period of time between 15 and 30 years. The interest that accompanies these students’ loans is variable. The downside to this is that with a long term plan, in years 15 to 30 you may end up having to pay significantly higher rates of interest than you did in years one to 15 since interest rates traditionally rise over time.

However, a government student loan consolidation secures a student’s interest rate. A fixed loan program means that students can obtain a government student loan consolidation at an excellent rate. For students with high debt, this fixed interest rate loan can literally save thousands of dollars in interest payments over the life of the repayment period.

The Higher Education Act (HEA) provides for a loan consolidation program under both the Federal Family Education Loan (FFEL) Programs and the

Both of these programs simplify loan repayment by combining several types of Federal education loans into one new government student loan consolidation product. Please note that even if your loans have different terms and repayment schedules or may have been by different lenders chances are good they are still eligible for a government student loan consolidation.

And, the interest rate on the government student loan consolidation may be significantly lower than one or more of your underlying loans. Further, the monthly amount on a government student loan consolidation is usually lower as the amount of time to repay may be extended beyond the terms of your separate loans. The bottom line is these features should result in a more manageable student loan debt. Additionally borrowers who opt for government student loan consolidation are less prone to default.

You can get a direct consolidation loan, available from ED, or a Federal (FFEL) Consolidation Loan, available from participating FFEL lenders. Under either program, the loan holder pays off the existing loans and makes one consolidation loan to replace them. If you have subsidized and unsubsidized loans, they’ll be grouped accordingly when you initialize your government student loan consolidation so you won’t lose your interest subsidy on the subsidized loans.

There are three categories of direct consolidation loans: Direct Subsidized Consolidation Loans, Direct Unsubsidized Consolidation Loans, and

Under the FFEL Program, you can receive a subsidized and/or an unsubsidized FFEL Consolidation Loan, depending on the types of loans you're consolidating. (FFEL PLUS Consolidation Loans are included under the Unsubsidized FFEL Consolidation Loan category.)

Both FFEL and Direct Consolidation Loans have the same interest rate, which is a fixed rate set according to a formula established by law. The rate is the weighted average rate of the current rates charged on the loans being consolidated, rounded up to the nearest one-eighth of a percent. This means the rate you'll pay won’t be more than one-eighth of a percent more than the effective rate on your individual loans. The rate is fixed for the life of the government student loan consolidation.