Many people find that when seeking the purchase of a home or establishment of a family, their student loans come back to haunt them. These college debts should be repaid as quickly as possible to help in moving on with your life.

There is one way around this; you can consolidate your student loans and make one payment each month.

By doing this, you actually reduce the amount of time and money used in paying off your various student loans. You can breathe a bit easier knowing that the one payment you make is going toward all those debts, and that they are being paid on time. And if your interest is at a fixed rate, you won't need to be concerned about it rising over time.

There are four broad types of student loans:

? Standard repayment plan - this is a plan extending over the course of ten years which has one interest rate.

? Extended repayment plan - this is spread over twelve to thirty years. One drawback of this option is that you could wind up paying back much more over the time.

? Graduated repayment plan - this is also spread over twelve to thirty years, but your payments rise every twenty four months. Very risky.

? Income contingent repayment plan - this option takes into account your circumstances and can last up to twenty five years. If you have a family and other commitments, you will pay less overall each month.

Before you jump into any consolidation of your loans, you need to think carefully about pros and cons, asking yourself some key questions.