1. Students must only consolidate loans which are variable or changing rates, such as the Stafford Loans, and never fixed-rate loans such as Perkins loans, since Perkins loans are set at a fixed rate, therefore there is no benefit financially and one can unable to acquire loan forgiveness provisions services like nursing or teaching.
2. Student loan consolidation programs are never identical between lenders having fluctuating grace periods, interest rates, late payments penalties, and loan repayment period. As student loan consolidation will lower your monthly payments, this also points that extra interest accumulate over the span of the loan and will drastically raise total cost of the loan.
3. To lower your student loan cost and its interest rate, you can opt not to consolidate all your available student loans; you can decide to include unsubsidized loans only or leave out loans with high interest with a low loan balance. Consult and seek advice from your lender student loan consolidation center on which loan options are best and right for you.