katrina2388

7-8% is actually a pretty good rate for a private loan. Unless you can't afford the monthly payments and need to stretch out the loan to a 30 year period I would not consolidate. In my experience unless you have excellent credit and excellent credit cosigner you will not get lower rates than you have. Trying your luck only to be offerered 8-9% or upwards would just add a ding to your credit report. If you do wish though, you should look for companies which base off LIBOR which has just dropped 2% over the last 3 months so it will be in a low period. Try citibank student loan corporation or Education Finance Partners (they just raised their spread though to make up for the lower LIBOR).

On the other hand, if you anticipate that you will be able to fork over enough cash over the next 2 years to pay off these loans completely than you may want to research the few companies offering a spread of 1% off the 1 month LIBOR for a 12 month period. After this year it increases to +5% spread, so it isn't worth it unless you have the extra cash to put towards it!