<prompt> Human: Hi all, So a little bit about myself: graduated May 2016 with a B.S in Comp Sci and I make about 55,000 a year as a contractor for the govt. My reasoning for this post is im currently in a little bit of a bind with my student loans and could use some advice.. Heres the breakdown:4 private student loans from sallie mae totalling 51k with interest rates at 7,9,10,11. which seems ridiculously high when I compare them to interest rates of the loans of some of my friends. 5 Federal student loans totaling to about 30k with low interest rates. Im a big proponent in the snowball effect, and Ive already made a significant dent in the 11 loan from sallie mae about 6k left on the original 12k My question is, is there anything that I can do to get the interest rates down on those other private loans? My minimum payments are ridiculously high which is limiting the amount of money I can put towards the principal. Ive been doing some research into refinancing, but will that automatically consolidate those private loans? Thanks for your help!  <response>: Now that you have a degree and a job you should be able to easily consolidate that into one loan with a much lower interest rate. Some people have mentioned companies like Earnest. I was in a similar spot, but was able to convert the loans to a 4 loan with Wells Fargo. 