<prompt> Human: The title just about says it all. She left grad school 6 months ago to take care of our baby and has no income currently. She has bad credit. I have good credit. Consolidating these loans would add a lot to my debt:income and I dont want to hurt my credit by doing so. Is my logic accurate?Edit: not all of her loans are from graduate school, only about 10k from undergrad. she was in chiropractic school then we had the baby. she was thinking of going back, but with the amount of money it would end up costing her 300k we made a decision for her to stop borrowing money and take care of our child, instead of putting her in daycare. Not all chiropractors make a ton of money, so it doesnt make sense for her to finish especially since she has an undergraduate degree that she can get a job with, so in a few years she will be working and paying off her portion of the debt. Assistant: What is your goal behind consolidating? The only way consolidating loans would help you is if you get a lower rate. And if you were to consolidate federal loans with a private lender, you will lose all federal benefits income based repayment, deferment or forbearance options, discharge upon disability, etc..Human: My goal is to lump all of our student debt together. I plan to choose the IBR plan for both of our payoff amounts. The way I understand it, is that the government only has you pay 10 of your discretionary income toward these loans. However, with 2 separate loans both on IBR, Ill essentially be paying 20 discretionary.  <response>: Math math math. 