Parents who wish to take out loans to fund their children's higher education goals often look to the PLUS loan program issued by the federal government. The PLUS loans offered are of great benefit because they can balance the total amount needed for the education and include books, residence and food programs.

Parents are able to begin repayment on the loans immediately and even opt for PLUS loan consolidation upon beginning paying the installments. Parents tend to do quite a bit more research on their financial undertakings so it is important that they be made aware of the consolidation situation.

The Rush Many people will rush to consolidate their loans thinking that there is a particular closing date to get loans each year. The reality is that on July 1st of each year the interest rate is revised by the US Treasury Department and typically increased by some measure. Prior to this, you can get the rate from the previous year. There is no particular reason to rush into a PLUS loan consolidation to get a great rate. The rates do not change by much each year and the difference can often be within the hundreds of dollars rather than the thousands.

Taking Time It can sometimes take a short period of time to have a loan approve. More often than not, loans take a month or more to have approved. PLUS loan consolidation can take even longer because the borrower has to go through a credit check to make sure they are financially fit enough to repay a consolidation loan. The loan processing time typically does not affect the interest rate you receive.

If your loan application was done before the July 1st deadline you should receive the previous year's interest rates. Sometimes the delay in loan processing is due to the sheer number of borrowers who want to have their student loans consolidated. There can be tens of thousands of application processed each month.

In some cases there are lenders who seek to take advantage of the delays in hopes the borrower will forget about the application and they can make profit off of the typically short attention span of people in the internet age. The US Department of Education is taking steps to improve the delays in loan processing time. They are imposing penalties on lenders who have excessively long processing periods and go as far as barring them from participating in the federal loan programs.