The direct student loans are low interest loans with which a student can pay the life expenses after the high-school. The lender is the U.S.Department of Education.

Once you are no longer enrolled at least half time in an eligible program, you'll receive a 6-month grace period on your Direct Subsidized and Unsubsidized Loans during which you are not required to make loan payments. You must begin repayment at the end of your grace period.

The direct student loan consolidation means, that if you have many federal education loans, you can combine them into one loan to make the management easier.

This will simplify the monthly repayments if you have multiple loan holders, because now you will have only one lender.

The direct student loan consolidation usually extends the loan repayment period resulting to the lower monthly payments. This can bring a much needed additional disposable money for you.

However, you will pay more interests, because the period during which you will do the payments will be longer. You have to think carefully the short and long term advantages of this system.

Unlike other loans, the consolidation loans have the fixed interest rates during the whole running time of the loan.

The fixed interest rate is calculated as the weighted average of the interest rates of the loans being consolidated, assigning relative weights according to the amounts borrowed, rounded up to the nearest 0.125%, and capped at 8.25%.