OK, I'm going to take this time to rant about my law school loan debt. Turn away if you're not interested in the crazy lady's ramblings.

I called a consolidation company to consolidate my federal loans. I don't need much, just a slight time extension on the length of the loan in order to lessen the monthly payment load. First, I was shocked to receive an ACTUAL person on the other end of the line (for this reason alone I recommend doing business with Collegiate Funding Services. But then, the actual person tells me that my loan servicer (who shall remain nameless for fear of lawsuits and such) has a policy of refusing to release loans for consolidation if all the loans are held by only one lender. I have SIX federal loans who are all held by one lender, so I'm out of luck. If I want to consolidate, I'll have to do it through my current servicer and lender. Now, I'm a little perturbed by this because all six of my loans were NOT with the same lender when I started. But through the course of business, my servicer made sure to arrange sales of my loans...you got it...all to the same lender. So I'm trapped into business with these people for the next ump-teen years because they (as my grandpa would say) snookered me! I'm so aggravated right now!