{prltitle}

Beginning a professional career with crippling debt is not generally considered an ideal situation. But every year for tens of thousands of college graduates, that is exactly the situation they face thanks to the student loans they took out to get them through college.

College education does not come cheaply. In fact, statistics show that, over the last three decades, the cost of a college course has increased to a greater degree than the average income. That means that, even with inflation taken into account. the costs of college have skyrocketed.

Little wonder then than loans for students are considered a must by the vast majority of college goers. Not only that, but it is not unusual for a number of separate loans to be taken out over the four or five years spent in college.

In order to effectively manage these loans, it is advisable to get a student consolidation loan, which brings the individual debt together into one entity, thereby making the repayments more manageable. To some, this may seem an unnecessary step to take, but there are several reasons why it is the wisest tactic, and two in particular.

Helps Keep Good Credit

It is a little known fact that students loans cannot be written off in bankruptcy. In that regard, they are very different to any other loan, and the stigma of not repaying the loans tends to stick. The reason is that loans for students are given a significant period of grace, which effectively means that the lenders have lost money by the time of graduation. They therefore reserve the right for full payment.

Defaulting would mean a serious hit on the credit rating of a graduate, and understandably that places a lot of pressure on them once they have graduated from college. To avoid a harsh fate in a jobs market that is weak, a student consolidation loan is the most practical solution.

Helps Recover from Bad Credit

A second reason is that should a student already develop a bad credit rating, then it is imperative that the student loan is repaid if their credit rating is to recover. Unless a well paid job is found quickly, then this is not going to happen, leaving consolidation the only practical step to take. Every lender knows that students do not have any money, so in approving loans to students they accept a higher level of risk. However, when the time comes, they will expect repayments to begin.

What a student consolidation loan does, is allow a new loan to repay the old one, but crucially, a manageable repayment schedule for the new loan can be negotiated. It means that if a lender starts to demand repayments on the student loan of perhaps USD500 per month, then through consolidation that loan can be repaid in full, while the new loan can be repaid at a rate of perhaps USD350 per month.

The new rate means that the debt is much more manageable, and the original loan is cleared too. However, it must be pointed out that any bad credit that is developed will mean that the student consolidation loan will have a higher interest rate. Therefore, it is essential that a graduate does not delay in taking control of their student loan.