Before you choose to consolidate your loans, examine your situation carefully to determine if this is the best course of action.

This isn’t a solution that works well for everyone (even if you do have several different loans to manage).

If you consolidate your loans now, your new rate will be based on a weighted average of all your loans' interest rates.

So, for a simplified example, if you have two loans, one for ,000 at 4% interest and one for ,000 at 6%, your consolidated loan will have a ,000 balance and a 4.7% interest rate.

In many cases, consolidation stretches the term of the loan, so you may actually pay more in interest over the life of the loan.

If possible, try to accelerate your payments as your income grows to avoid paying additional interest.

Here's what you need to know before deciding to consolidate student loans.

Loan consolidation is when a borrower takes out a new loan to pay off several smaller student loans.

But that hasn't been the case for the past decade, since the government stopped issuing student loans with variable rates.Consolidating those loans into a single new one can simplify your payments, especially if your loans are with different loan servicers, the companies that oversee your payments.It can also be a way to get into repayment plans you otherwise wouldn't be eligible for.1. One of the myths of consolidation is that it makes your debt less expensive by lowering your interest rate.When you consolidate your debt, you combine all those loans into one.You do this by taking out a new loan for the amount of the balances of the existing loans, use the newly borrowed money to repay all the older loans, and then focus on repaying your one new loan.Private loans may be eligible for consolidation, but not all lenders agree to become part of a consolidation.In most cases, it is not possible to combine federal and private student loans in a student loan debt consolidation loan, due to the differences between loan terms.