The Student Loan Sherpa

Ben from twitter wants to know if it possible to consolidate federal loans without losing the benefits…

@TheLoanSherpa Is it possible to consolidate federal loans without losing the benefits of those loans?
— Benjamin Blackmer (@benblackmer) March 11, 2015

The answer is, yes… and no.

Yes, you can consolidate your federal loans into one larger loan. The only place to do it is here: http://www.loanconsolidation.ed.gov The good part about federal loan consolidation is that you can keep the benefits such as income based repayment or loan forgiveness. (Note: there is no way to “undo” a loan consolidation, so if you go this route, be sure you understand all of the consequences and that it is what you want)

However, the reason it is also a no is because federal consolidation had limitations that private loan consolidation does not have. Normally when you consolidate loans, you can lock in a lower interest rate. When you consolidate your federal loans through the federal government the interest rate is a weighted average of your interest rates.. meaning you don’t save any money on interest by consolidating this way.