Contact the organization that is handling your private loans. Ensure that you have all of your loan information in front of you, including all terms and interest rates. Ask to speak to the person who is handling your account.
Explain that you are interested in consolidating your loans. Consolidation generally entails taking a variety of loans, as well as their corresponding payments, and combining them into one. After consolidation, a single monthly payment is usually all that is required in order to keep up on your loans. If possible, negotiate the interest rate with the company in order to pay as little in interest as possible.
Allow the company to run a credit check on you. If it shows that your credit is not good enough in order to secure a consolidation on your own, you may choose to bring a co-signer on board. A co-signer who has good credit is often enough to convince the company to go through with the consolidation.
Mention to the person handling your account if you are unable to begin making payments immediately. There are a variety of ways to put off making a payment, such as hardship deferment, forbearance and educational deferment. Ask if you qualify for any of these options.