In the U.S., the\u00a0Federal Direct Student Loan Program\u00a0(FDLP) includes consolidation loans that let students to combine Stafford Loans,\u00a0PLUS Loans, and\u00a0Federal Perkins Loans\u00a0into one single debt. This scheme helps reducing monthly repayments and increases the term for the loan. The best part of the Federal Student Loan Consolidation is that unlike some other loans, these loans have a fixed interest rate for the life of the loan.<\/p>\n
Interest rates and payments<\/p>\n
Consolidation loans have longer payment duration compared to other loans. Debtors can decide on terms of 10\u201330 years. Even though the monthly repayments are lower, the total amount paid back during the repayment is higher than what would be paid on other loans.<\/p>\n
The method of Calculation<\/p>\n
Under this scheme, the fixed interest rate is calculated to the\u00a0weighted average\u00a0of the interest rates of the loans which are consolidated, assigning relative weights depending on the amounts borrowed, rounded up to the nearest 0.125%, and capped at 8.25%. Some attributes of the original consolidated loans, such as post-graduation grace periods and forgiveness circumstances (in extraordinary situation), are not carried over into the consolidation loan, and consolidation loans are not generally appropriate for all debtors.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
In the U.S., the\u00a0Federal Direct Student Loan Program\u00a0(FDLP) includes consolidation loans that let students to combine Stafford Loans,\u00a0PLUS Loans, and\u00a0Federal […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[106],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1236","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-personal-finance"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www2.stockmarketwatch.com\/learn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1236","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www2.stockmarketwatch.com\/learn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www2.stockmarketwatch.com\/learn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www2.stockmarketwatch.com\/learn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www2.stockmarketwatch.com\/learn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1236"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www2.stockmarketwatch.com\/learn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1236\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www2.stockmarketwatch.com\/learn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1236"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www2.stockmarketwatch.com\/learn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1236"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www2.stockmarketwatch.com\/learn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1236"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}