One benefit of loan consolidation is the simplicity of paying one monthly bill and knowing that all your debt is through one financial lender.

There is no need to have seven different addresses and banks, to which you must keep up with and send out bills on a monthly basis. The monthly payment is usually much lower on consolidated loans than individual loans. If you decide to consolidate, they will take all your loans together and then give you a few options on how fast you want to pay them back.

If you are still struggling with getting a job, then there are options that take this into account. For example, you can pick an option that has a smaller monthly fee for the first couple of years while you get started on your career. Then the monthly fee increases on the assumption that you will have your finances in order and be making more money than you had been when you had just graduated.

While this is great for students who are young and have very little income coming in, many students going back to college may have a spouse to help them repay their loans.

If you can afford paying a higher monthly payment for your student loans each month, you should. That way you can pay off your balance sooner and avoid paying more interest than you have to. Consolidated loans also allow you to pay more than your monthly balance without incurring fees.

So if you have extra money one month, say your income tax refund, you can apply it to your student loans and pay the debt off quicker. And the best thing about loan consolidation is that you can generally get a lower fixed rate for your consolidated loans than on individual loans.

A fixed rate means that they won’t increase your rate later on as inflation rises. This generally works in your favor, since rates tend to increase as time goes on.