I just consolidated all my Stafford loans from Citibank and Wachovia with the Dept. of Education in July 2008. It worked to my advantage because I have a 4.5% Interest rate as opposed to a 7 and 8%.

But here is my main question. The Citibank and Wachovia loans are all showing up on my credit report. Even though they ARE showing as consolidated and paid as agreed, I have to wonder if the number of loans showing is hurting me and if so, can I request they be removed? I had something like 12 Citibank loans and 4 Wachovia loans. They are all listed under Closed Accounts.

Would Citibank and Wachovia remove them if I asked, or do I just have to deal with them being on for 7 years?

That's how consolidated SLs are supposed to report. They're almost certainly not hurting you. In fact, having them removed could potentially hurt you because you'd lose the age (that's assuming you don't have any lates or anything on the old TLs).

How do you get a 4.5% when your consolidated interest is a weighted average of what you had?? Variables havent been 4.5% for a couple of years.

I don't know how I managed to get a rate that low. I know I applied for the consolidation back in April/May through Citibank and they sent all the paperwork through to the Dept of Ed. I had gotten a letter from them stating that they were holding onto my loan paperwork until after the 1st of July because they were anticipating a drop of the interest rates and it could be to my advantage to wait. So I did. When I got all my new paperwork from the Dept. of Education (Direct Loans), it showed my interest rate at 4.5% I didn't question it at all.

Consolidated a Dept of Ed loan and another loan with the Dept of Ed last Nov. Also got 4.5% which was further reduced to 4.25% because of 1yr of on-time electronic automatic payments.