Parents give every encouragement and follow their children?s academic progress with a combination of anxiety and hope which culminates in ecstatic relief and joy with the release of built-up strains and stresses at periodic intervals as their child passes one examination after another sailing through the curriculum in a seemingly effortless manner.

The parents get carried away with euphoria and keep on pumping money to the child?s education program year after year at an alarming pace borrowing funds from wherever possible at whatever cost quite oblivious to the mounting debt being piled up all around them.

In terms of the release of all students from ?defense of infancy? provisions with regard to student loans, the student remains ultimately responsible for the discharge of all of the federal loans (except PLUS loans) piled up over a period of four to five years, and as the student is just about to walk into the world with optimism to start on the career of his dreams, duly qualified and graduated, beholding this massive debt that has to be now settled by him could be extremely overwhelming.

It is very important that he understands even at this late juncture of all of the options available to him to get over the problem to his best advantage; or in other words to at least minimize his disadvantage.

There is no doubt that this is the time that the student had always looked forward to, to find gainful employment in his chosen profession and to indulge in all the luxuries and good things with a high profile lifestyle and to really enjoy himself after much studies and continuous hard work over the past few years; only to find himself inundated with debts and more debts pressing him down unmercifully.

He will now have to look around for some fast solution to this problem, something that he should have looked into more carefully at the time he and his parents went on a loans taking spree without any thoughts of the future. It?s too late to think of that now and what remains to be done is to try to manage his debt in a more professional manner at least from this point forward.

The government as well as the private sector have a type of loan just for this purpose and the time when the student is highly worried with the prospect of years and years of debt repayments seemingly without end, taking a big uncomfortable slice off his income.

Student Loan Consolidation Programs have been created just for this type of situation to alleviate the hardships of keeping track of several loans to be paid back on due dates month after month to not just one lender but many lenders.

The main purpose of a student loan consolidation program is to combine all (or at least as many loans as possible) into one loan payable to just one lender at a single fixed lower rate of interest so as to effectively combat the rising cost of higher education while streamlining the repayment process with an easy single payment per month cutting down on the mental strain on follow up and paper work involved. Student loan consolidation is available through the government or private lenders that help students save hundreds of dollars monthly and allow them much needed breathing space to concentrate and get on with the other numerous requirements of day-to-day life.

There are four types of Student Loan Consolidation that are described below and they carry different interest rates. Therefore, students who contemplate consolidating their existing loans would do well not only to research all the options offered under the different programs of repayment, but also remember that these terms too could differ appreciably from one lender to another.