<prompt> Human: I am going to graduate college this month with roughly 32,000 in loans.I am wondering if I should try to consolidate my loans to get cheaper monthly payments. If so, how should I go about this? I am relatively unfamiliar with finance, but I have started to do some reading.A friend of mine suggested I just defer for the first year after I graduate, but I dont think that sounds like a good idea. Im currently working part-time making a little over 600 a month. Any advice is appreciated!  <response>: Dont defer. Unless you are in an actual emergency.I consolidated my student loans with SoFi. It did lower my overall rate. However, there is NO deferment, income based payments, or help of any kind. So you need to be pretty confident that you can make those payments for the term of the consolidated loan.I graduated with about 32k of student debt. The hard part is your level of income relative to your debt. While you are making 600month, you might want to stick with the loans in their current state so your payments are more flexible.I feel like I have to say this... You need to be very frugal right now. Youre number 1 goal in life right now is to keep your expenses as low as possible. Youre number 2 goal is increase your income while maintaining goal 1. The sooner you pay off that debt, the sooner you can move on and be free of it.Dont accept the normal payment period. You want it gone early. As early as possible. 