Responding to Thursday's column on student-loan consolidations, reader Glenn Letsch asks: "Our daughter Alysia is graduating from UC Davis in June, with a B.A. in psychology.
She will need student loans to get through the program.
If we wait to lock in the rate until after she finishes grad school, we run the risk of a higher interest rate.
Letsch will be happy to know he can have his cake and eat it too, but like everything in college financing, the reasons are complex.
His question demonstrates why students should not wait until the last minute before deciding whether and with whom they want to consolidate.
The last minute is June 30 -- the final day to consolidate variable- rate college loans into a fixed-rate loan before rates go up, probably by two percentage points or more.
This applies to government-guaranteed Stafford loans (taken out by students) and Plus loans (taken out by parents).
The rules for consolidation and repayment differ slightly if your Stafford or Plus loan came directly from the federal government (a direct loan) or from a commercial lender (such as Sallie Mae or a bank) under the Federal Family Education Loan Programs.
At other schools, borrowers can choose a commercial lender for their Stafford or Plus loans.
Students don't have to make any payments on their Stafford loans while they are in school, during a six-month grace period after they graduate or stop going to school at least half time, or during deferment periods sometimes granted for economic hardship.
In this case, a student who consolidated after graduation but before July 1 might have to make a couple of payments before entering grad school in the fall and going back into deferment.