Depending on your individual loan situation, you may find yourself with much lower monthly payments. According to the Ecampustours website, you could cut your payments by as much as 54 per cent. As the Adventurers in Education website says, this can be a help for you if you, because of your job situation, are unable to even make the minimum monthly payments, which, indeed, can be high, depending on how much you borrowed while in school.
Your interest rates don't change. As the Ecampustours website points out, your interest rate on a consolidate loan is fixed for the life of the loan. This is not true of federal loans, such as Stafford, PLUS, or Perkins. The website says that the interest rate on a consolidated loan rounds up to the nearest eighth of a percent.
Some loan consolidation companies offer life-of-loan servicing. According to the Ecampustours website, this means that as long as you owe on your loan, your loan consolidation company will be who you do business with, and they will never sell your loans to another company.
According to the Studentconsolidator website, you will not encounter overpayment penalties. That means that you can make your payments as high as you would like. Once you've removed this restriction, you can save for other expenses associated with adulthood, such as house mortgages and car notes.
Some programs reward consolidating customers. The Ecampustours website gives two examples of such benefits. Many debt companies offer a payment reduction benefit if a former student makes 120 consecutive payments on time. The other reward provides an incentive for former college students to pay by automatic debit. By taking advantage of these programs, you could even lower your interest rates.