What are the interest rates on these loans? Where did you obtain them from? If you provide more information, I could give more helpful feedback.

Private student loans can offer very unfavorable terms. Government subsidized loans offer the borrower much more money.

I received the loans through Teri.org. They are now services through AES. The interest rates are about 7 percent. They aren't too high it is just that I have several of them and it seems there is no way to consolidate.

I've never actually heard of teri.org so I'll check it out now...I'll be entering university from August 2007.

I believe teri.org is just the website for Chase Private Educational One Loans. I have a loan thru Chase and they send a user to that site to access your account.

As far as consolidating...if they will allow you to pay off the loan, you can consolidate. The question is whether you can get as good a rate, or if it will improve your cash flow. Even at a higher rate you are likely to find it reduces your monthly expense, but you will be paying more, for a longer period of time to repay the balance.

Do you own a home? Many people will use a home to get a low rate refinance with cash out to pay off miscellaneous debts.

You may also get credit offers with 0% for several months and 9% thereafter. This is more expensive long term, but will consolidate payments and most likely reduce monthly payments.

The best way is to "snowball" the debt and get rid of it. Pay minimum amounts on everything except the one debt you wish to get rid of first. This one gets all the extra cash you can come up with. It may be one that is the smallest so it will go away quickly, or it may be the one with the highest payment, or the highest interest rate. You will decide which one is best in your situation to accelerate the payoff.

Once that first one is done, you now transfer all the extra cash to the next one, and so on, until you have them all payed off.

It takes diligence, but is worth the sacrifice.

Obviously it is good to consolidate your loans but I am scared to see what mine will look like in one lump sum.

Consolidation is the way to go though. It will allow you to have more manageable payment structure. I did it with mine It allowed me to live life a little more.

Just be sure that the consolidation is not a shovel in disguise.

Often times when I have helped people restructure their debt to give them room to invest and to breath, they turn around and buy a new car or a time share. It makes me want to scream when I hear that they are struggling just like before.

I truly believe you have to want to make changes in your lifestyle that allows the restructuring to be beneficial.