Thankfully for the most recent graduates, there is still plenty of time to figure this out. This is because of the fact that congress has made a few recent changes for the year of 2008.

These changes have helped students by lowering the Stafford loan rates so that it is fixed at the low rate of 6.8 percent. For those students who qualify for the subsidized Stafford loans, then your rate would decrease over the course of a few years until the rate of 3.4 percent is reached in the year of 2011.

For students who are beginning their search for student loan consolidations, especially the federal student loan consolidations, it is better to try for the month of May. This is because of an auction that occurs during that last week. It is the United States Treasury Bond Auction and it is held annually during the very last week of May.

Though the bond auction occurs in May, the new interest rates for federal student loans and federal student loan consolidations don't take effect in until the first of July. Between May and July, lenders have a chance to decide on a lower rate than they are currently consolidating loans for, and, if they feel that it will benefit them, then they lower the fixed interest rate. If they don't feel that it will be any kind of benefit for them, then they will wait until the new rates will take place in July.

After the auction is over, any student who are looking for student loan consolidations should begin watching the markets as soon as soon as the U.S. Treasury bond auction has ended because that month before the new interest rate is fixed is when the individual loaners will start to drop fixed rates for the student loan consolidations in order to get more business.

There are things to watch out for when you are deciding on any kind of student loan consolidation or any loan consolidations for that matter. There are scams, especially on internet searches. These scams will ask for a fee to be paid upfront, before anything else happens. Even though there are a few specific types of loans that will have a consolidation fees, none will ask for them upfront. When you are looking for your student loan consolidation you will rarely come across anything that asks for fees, because they slightly raise your interest rate to pay for it instead.

When you are looking at federal student loan consolidation, you need to be sure to keep all of your federal student loans together and separated from federal loans. This will allow you to take advantage of offers that you can get from the federal loans that will be ruined if they are grouped with private loans. Remember to time your student loan consolidations for the best benefits and offers you can get.

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School loan consolidation doesn't have to be a major headache. By doing research on the Internet and using free student loan debt consolidation resources you'll be able to find a program that will save you money and headaches!