Why Should I Consolidate My Student Loans?

Consolidating your student loans may very well be one of the most responsible and intelligent decisions you will ever make about your college finances. This is because if you have taken out more than one student loan or parent loan, it can be very difficult paying their monthly bills. If you add up how much you’ll be spending a month on loan bills, it probably wouldn’t be a very pretty picture.

That’s why consolidation is the way to go.

What Can Consolidating My Student Loans Do For Me Now?

Having to deal with multiple loans at once can be a real drag. That’s why consolidating your student loans is the only way to go. And the benefits begin as soon as you consolidate. Seriously. Consolidating can:

Lower your monthly payments

By combining all of your loans into one large loan, the interest rate will change and so will your monthly payment amount. Rather than having to pay two or even three loan bills at once, you’ll only be responsible for one payment. This payment will end up being much lower than how much you were spending on all of your loans before, which is a definite benefit, wouldn’t you say?

Help you save with tax-deductible interest

Interest on your consolidated student loan falls under the category of education loans. This means that any interest that you were responsible for paying in any given year is tax deductible. You can take the student loan interest deduction on your taxes and save a couple thousand dollars! loans for college

Keep more cash in your wallet

Rather than spending all of your money and then some on student loan payments each month, you can instead save that cash for something fun or to invest in your future. If you want to start a business, use the money you’re saving on your loans to do it. Or, if you want to own a home, save that cash for a down payment.

What Can Consolidating My Student Loans Do For Me In the Future?

Besides the immediate benefits of consolidating your student loans, there are also several long term benefits you should be aware of including:

Money saved on interest

By consolidating right now, you get to “lock in” a much lower interest rate than your student loans probably had initially. This will help you save considerable money because more of what you pay will be going toward paying off the principal rather than just paying the interest.

Credit score improvement

Consolidating your student loans works wonders on your credit score. Just think about it. Your credit score will improve because you’ve paid off two or three loans in their entirety. You’re score will also improve because the new loan has a lower interest rate than the previous ones. Plus, you will not have as many creditors, which further boosts your credit.

Prepayment is not a problem

Another benefit of student loan consolidation is that you can often pay more on your loan if you’d like to pay if off quicker. So, once you start earning more money, you can pay more each month if you can afford it. There are no prepayment penalties. This way, the terms of the loan are very much in your hands in terms of what you can and cannot do.

The fact of the matter is, student loan consolidation is the way to go when it comes to making smart choices about your financial future. So many people get stuck with unbearable student loan debt and the quality of their lives suffers for it. You don’t have to let that happen to you.