Hello and welcome to Moneygirls Quick and Dirty Tips for a richer life.

I'm your host Laura Adams. This podcast is for all you graduates or parents of

graduates who have student loans. Now on to student loans. This topic was inspired by Stacy from St Paul, Minnesota who sent me an email. She writes,

I graduated last May and finished my student teaching this winter and finally

started to look at student loan consolidation. None of the websites have looked

at can help me and I don't know where else to look. I've got at least $100,000 in student loan debt and I really want to make sure

that I do this correctly. Please help.

Stacy, thanks for your email. First of all, for those who may be unfamiliar with loan consolidation,

it's a strategy to help lower monthly debt.

A loan consolidation allows you to lump together two or more loans into one new bigger loan with the fixed

interest rate. You can work with any lender you choose and usually there are no

loan consolidation fees. The lender pays off your existing loan balances and

replaces them with a single loan so you just have one monthly payment to make.

Both students and parents can consolidate education loans, however they can't combine loans that Students and

can consolidate education loans, however, they can't combine loans that are in different names.

Only loans from the same borrower can be consolidated.

Even married couples must keep their respective education loans separate.

And be aware that students can't consolidate education loans while they're still in school.

You can consolidate most federal student loans,

but finding lenders that will consolidate your private loans is more difficult.

And remember that if you only have one student loan, whether it's federal or private, you can always refinance it by itself.

You can even re-consolidate a consolidation loan

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