The student debt is increasing every year. College costs, as well as costs of higher education have risen faster than inflation. Pell grants have not kept, but Stafford loan and other federal student loan close interest rates are low.

College Student Debt

A recent study by the National Center for Education Statistics (1) shows that nearly 50% of recent college graduates have student loans, with an average student loan debt of $ 10000. The average cost of a college is increasing twice as fast as inflation, the College Board (2) believes that the public school costs on average about $ 13000 per year and private schools costs $ 28000.

Once you graduate you have to start paying back your debt. There are many ways to reduce your debt burden, the most common of which is to consolidate student loans or simply to refinance your student loans. There are two main advantages to the consolidation of student loans.

The biggest advantage is the reduction of interest rates and, consequently, the monthly payments and overall debt. Interest rates are low, around now, the chances are you will get a better rate than now when you get your loan.

The second advantage is the reduction in the number of creditors. This makes it easier to keep track of your payments. More importantly, it means that you must deal with a creditor, if you are late with a payment or the need to renegotiate your loan for any reason.

Of course, you can not consolidate the debt of a student credit card with your student loans - they are very different types of debts. However, you can consolidate debt credit card through private companies, and you can potentially consolidate your student loans in the private loan. But remember, federally funded student loans are much lower than the interest rates on the private loans, and if you roll them together, you will need to use the higher interest rate - to keep private and federal consolidation loan programs separate students.

Student Debt Info