I am trying to decide whether or not to consolidate my student loans and where. Here's my situation:

I have about $42,000 in undergrad loans, my wife about $22,000. I also have about $6,000 in graduate school loans.

I start medical school in August, and the Army will be paying my tuition, thus saving me from an additional $140,000 in student loans. However, I intend to take out what I can in stafford loans (Approx $6,000/yr) for the first two years to pay off bills. I will also be getting a paycheck from the Army on top of my wife's nursing salary.

My questions:

1) Is it possible to consolidate my wife's and my loans into one? If so, how will repayment work since mine will be deferred for being in school.

2) Would I enter repayment if I consolidate?

I'm not sure what to do with them. THanks.

I dont think you can consolidate your wifes loans with yours.

If you consolidate you can still maintain your grace period but you should speak with your consolidator about it. If you are in school you should not have to make loan payments although interest will continue to accrue.

You CAN consolidate with your wife, but I caution strongly against that. If something were to happen to either of you, the other would be stuck with paying the loan, instead of it being discharged. In addition, and I don't mean to sound crass here, but if you were to split up, would you want to be responsible for her loan?

If you consolidate you can request in-school deferment, just as you would without consolidation.

But again, I strongly urge you to proceed with caution when considering consolidating your student loans with your wife's.

Another bad thing about consolidating with a spouse, in order totake advantage of any possible deferments or forebearances, BOTH of you have to qualify for it. DH & I wish we had never consolidated together but our loan counselor neglected to mention about both having to qualify and did everything they could to talk us into consolidation.

And I have discovered that some changes have been made to the rules regarding forgiveness. Eve nwith spousal consolidation, you can get forgiveness for the death or disability of one spouse. It was explained to me that they will calculate what % of the total each spouse consolidated and use that % to determine how to forgive.