You have invested a lot of time into college, and now you have graduated. You now have an opportunity to put all that learning into practice. But, what about the student loan? Today, student loan consolidation is becoming more and more necessary. Read to find out why, and get some tips for student loan consolidation.

Looking at the statistics, we find that on average a student will end up with over $20,000 in debt, by the end of there education. You likely can relate to this. It seems like before you even get a job, you have to get into debt.

The problem is not so much the loans. But, the high levels of interest. Even though students get some of the greatest rates, the student loans can add up. Wouldn't it be nice to get better rates?

Student loan consolidation is the answer. By consolidating a student loan, you basically put all of the separate loans into one big loan. This in effect makes it possible to get better rates. This is so, because more you borrow, the less interest you have to pay.

There are benefits and negatives when you consolidate a loan. Some of these benefits and negatives are:
* If you have several federal student loans, you can get a better rate by putting them into one student consolidation loan

* Though you get a better rate of interest by putting all the separate federal student loans into one student loan consolidation loan, you could still end up paying more. This is due to the fact that larger debts are for longer lengths of time. A tip is to always try to pay extra each month and that way, you will have to pay less over the long term. Though you will need to check the terms to see if this is possible.

* A big benefit of student loan consolidation is that it is easier to manage. Student loans that come at various times in the month can really cause havoc on your finances. Having a repayment date for one loan makes life easier.

* The problem with the time thing, is that if before you found it easy to deal with small amounts of loans that is spread out, one big loan may not help you.

* Student loan consolidation is not available to everyone. Student loan consolidation programs generally work with debt over $10,000. So if you have less student debt, then you may not be able to consolidate your student loan.

* There are some benefits of student loan consolidation. The first is that you can get some great extra's with student loans. Some can be better rates if you consistently pay on time. And even some will include cash back. Though you need to check to see if you really are getting a better deal with this option.

The first thing you want to make sure you do is to do some research before choosing one particular student loan consolidation program. Online this research can be much easier, and finding online student loan consolidation programs is a popular route to getting the best deals. Make sure you do some research, as there are many different packages, even out of student consolidation loans that can give you great rates.