How much interest can I expect to pay on my student loans?

Comparing interest rates

You’ve graduated! Now it’s time to sit down and take a long hard look at those student loans that have accumulated. The typical six-month grace period between graduation and making that first payment on your student loans can creep up quickly and you may be panicked to realize that your combined student loan payments are more than you can handle.

What to do? It might be time to consolidate college loans into one easy-to-handle monthly payment.

When searching for the best student loan consolidation companies, do a little investigative work on student loan consolidation rates. Do you have private or federal student loans to consolidate? Federal student loans are subsidized by the government, which could mean lower interest rate options for you.

On private college loan consolidation, the interest rate is determined by taking a weighted average of the interest rates on all loans to be consolidated and rounding up to the nearest 1/8 of a percent.

Federal consolidation loans, however, come with a fixed interest rate that follows a set federal formula. The fixed interest rate for consolidation loans varies from borrower to borrower and are based on the borrower’s underlying loans’ primary rates.