Will Consolidating My Student Loan Debt Increase My Credit Score?

Last Update: September 8, 2021 • College Students • Loans •

With total U.S. student loan debt surpassing the 1.4 trillion mark, borrowers have become even more reliant on debt to finance their education. And with plans from public and private lenders, loans are usually spread across multiple institutions.

Student loan consolidation allows you to turn multiple small loans into one large loan financed by a single lender. When applied, the new lender pays off all of your student loan debt and refinances the debt into a single loan.

Previously, we outlined how student loan refinancing can help you obtain a lower interest rate.

But can consolidation actually increase your credit score as well?

What is a Student Loan Servicer and Why Does it Matter?

Public student loans are offered through the U.S. Department of Education. Its Federal Student Loan Portfolio is comprised of billions of dollars from Federal Direct Loans, Family Federal Education Loans (FFEL), and Perkins Loans. For more information on how public student loans work, check out our Federal Student Loan Interest Rates article.

When a payment is made each month, your funds are directed to a federal student loan servicer. The debt collector is assigned by the U.S. Department of Education and is used to make collections on its behalf. Because many student loan borrowers make one large payment per month, they’re often surprised to find out the entire sum is actually spread across multiple lenders. For example, if you take out a student loan at the beginning of each academic year, you can have as many as four separate lenders listed in your credit report.

How Does Student Loan Consolidation Help Your Credit Score?

When you consolidate several active loans into a single credit account, it reduces the noise in your credit report, making you look more reliable in the eyes of lenders. More importantly, credit scoring models – like FICO, Experian, or TransUnion – consider your active credit accounts when quantifying your credit score.

So while consolidating your student loans won’t actually remove the accounts from your credit report – instead, they’ll be labeled as ‘paid’ – the process does shrink the number of active accounts, which reduces your overall credit risk. Now, before you get too excited, the bump in your credit score will only be marginal. Other variables like your payment history, credit utilization, and debt-to-income ratio, hold much more weight in most scoring models. However, every point counts. Student loan consolidation is a way to move your credit score positively.

If you miss a payment, you end up defaulting on multiple small loans issued by multiple lenders in the previous scenario. In your credit report, each account will be labeled as past due. This is extremely damaging to your credit score because scoring models will result in several delinquencies instead of just one.

Now imagine you’ve consolidated your student loan debt.

If you miss a payment, the ‘past due’ label will still apply. However, now, the delinquency only affects a single account. Your credit score will take less of a hit because the late payment is confined to one account.

What are The Pros and Cons of Student Loan Consolidation?

Before deciding whether student loan consolidation is right for you, remember that consolidation requires you to convert your public student loan into a private student loan. Because of this, you need to consider multiple factors before making your final decision.

Pros:

Lower interest rates. Many private lenders offer refinancing options that can shave 0.5% to 1% off your interest rate. For example, if you have $30,000 in student loan debt and plan to repay the proceeds over 10 years, you will save $1,735.32 in total interest by reducing your interest rate from 5% to 4%.
Variable interest rate options. Public student loan interest rates are fixed, so they don’t fluctuate with U.S. Treasury yields or central bank policy. You can opt for a variable interest rate structure with private student loans. Thus, if rates decline, the interest rate on your consolidated loan will decline as well.
Cosigner options are available. A cosigner can help you obtain a loan with better terms and a lower interest rate. With public student loans, you usually don’t have this option.

Cons:

Foregoing financial assistance. If you demonstrate significant financial need with public student loans, the government can pay a portion of your loan interest while in school and after graduation.
Forgoing delayed repayment. You don’t need to repay the loan proceeds with public student loans until you graduate or your enrollment status dips to part-time. Conversely, private student loans can require repayment while you’re still in school.
Foregoing loan forgiveness. Public student loans offer loan forgiveness to borrowers who qualify. Private student loans don’t have this option.

Conclusion

While student loan consolidation can provide a slight increase in your credit score, you need to weigh multiple factors before making the switch. The tactic’s benefit is shrinking a large number of small loans into a single debt account. By doing so, you decrease the active number of credit accounts in your credit report, which helps lower your risk in lenders’ eyes. After consolidation, a missed payment’s negative effect also decreases in magnitude. On the flip side, switching from a public to a private student loan requires you to forfeit many of the benefits embedded in public student loans. These include financial assistance, delayed repayment, and loan forgiveness. Thus, before you make your final decision, we recommend weighing the pros and cons and choosing the option that works best for you.