The federal government makes borrowing money for college very easy. They also make it very easy to repay the loans on terms that work best for you. The biggest example of this is the benefits you receive by consolidating your loans.
When you borrow money from the government for school it usually comes in a number of small loans throughout the course of your academic career. By the time you're finished with school you have multiple loans with varying interest rates that are owed to different lenders who take on the guaranteed loans from the government.
Consolidating simply combines all your small federal loans into one large loan with a fixed interest rate. Two important things come from consolidating your loans. First, you save money with a lower interest rate. Second, you have less repayment hassle because you owe one loan to one lender. Because of this you only have one small payment going out each month. Saving money aside, peace of mind alone is worth consolidating your loan.
But saving money is important too, so let's talk about that some. When you consolidate you lock in your interest rates at one low amount. For the rest of the life of your loan, maybe 10, 20 or even 30 years, your minimum payments will never change. You can always pay more if you'd like, but the next benefit we'll talk about will explain why you'd probably be better off not doing that either.
The benefit I'm speaking of is the tax deductions you can claim on student loan interest. Because of the low interest rates and the money you can save on your taxes, your extra money is usually better off going towards high interest debt (like credit cards) or if you have no debt like that it can be invested.
Government student loans are perhaps the best kind of debt you can have. Granted, it's still money you've got to pay to someone else, but it's going towards an investment you've made in your future and the terms are so favorable to borrowers federal student loans are the best deal going for educational financial aid.
Go to the School Loans Consolidation Guide to learn more about school loans consolidation, additional benefits of government loan consolidation and how you can apply for a federal school loan.
