Combining your private student loans can make life simpler. You will have only one monthly payment, and it will be much easier to see where you are at with your debt. Some people do this as soon as they get out of school and others wait until the grace period for their loans is over to take advantage of that time without having to make payments. It is good to remember that loan consolidation is a process. First you need to research lenders, ideally you will want to find a co-signer, then you will need to apply, and finally you will need to be approved. The approval process can take up to 60 days, so you might want to begin the process before your grace period runs out.

The reason you want to research lenders is that you want to find the best option available to you. Student loan consolidation terms are typically 10, 15, and 20 years. That is a long time to spend with a debt. Hopefully, you will not take that entire time to pay it off, but it is something to think about. If you already have accounts with Wells Fargo, like if you took out a student loan through them, then you qualify for a discount when you consolidate your loans with them. Most banks offer incentives to their customers. The lowest interest rate is really the thing you are looking for.

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Wells Fargo offers .25% off your interest rate for having a checking account with them, but they offer a .50% interest rate discount if you have a Wells Fargo PMA package. This is definitely worth looking into. It is sort of an all-in-one account, which is why they call it a “package”. The stipulation is that you have to carry $25,000 in balances with Wells Fargo. This includes checking, brokerage, and credit card accounts. This even includes 10% of your mortgage. As well as the student loan consolidation discount, you get these benefits:

• No checking account service fees.

• No online bill payment charges.

• 100 stock or mutual fund trades for free each year.

• Free Wells Fargo credit card rewards program enrollment (with 1% cash back).

You also need to decide between a fixed and variable interest rate. The difference between them can cost you over $100 a month. The advantage of a fixed rate is the assurance that your payment amount will never change. A variable rate is currently lower but could jump up at any time and increase your monthly payments. So, a variable rate is riskier, but if you chose a variable rate and made the same payment that you would if you had a fixed rate, then you would be paying that much more principal. Unless you actually intend to have the loan for 20 years, then it is sort of a no-brainer.

If you set up automatic withdrawal for your payments, you get a further discount, and beyond all of these the bank will be looking at your credit and your co-signer. Having good credit goes a long way towards getting a good interest rate. Having a co-signer with good credit adds to that as well. Visit here

Consolidating your student loans is not something you need to rush into. If you don’t have good credit, wait for a bit and build it before you apply. It is difficult to even get approval if you don’t have good credit and a co-signer.