How to Consolidate Private and Public Student Loans

Almost everyone who attends college graduates with student loans that need to be repaid. Student loans fall into one of two categories: public student loans and private student loans. Whether you have private student loans, public student loans or a combination, there are ways to consolidate them to make repaying them easier to manage.

Instructions

1. Determine the type of student loans that you have. If any of your loans are paid to the "US Department of Education", then it is a publicly funded student loan. If the loans are payable to a bank, they are private student loans.

2. Familiarize yourself with the current student loan consolidation rates. There is a link in the Resources Section below that provides these loan rates.

3. If your student loans are private loans, choose one of the private student loan consolidation providers. There are only four companies that do this and you can find them by clicking on the link in the Resources section at the end of this article.

4. If your student loans are publicly funded student loans, they can be consolidated through the US Department of Education, which is the institution that issues and services public loans.

Tips & Warnings

• You cannot consolidate public loans with private loans, they must stay separate.

Resources

• www.FinAid.org