There are plenty of options available to help finance your higher education, from federal student loans like the Perkins and Stafford loans to private bank credit products designed especially for students. Students will, one the whole, find it easier to get these loans because many of these offerings do not require a credit check.
Student loans work on the principle that they are in investment in your future - the assumption is that the loans will help you to get a college education, whether it's at an undergraduate or post graduate level, which will in theory allow you to get a good job after graduation, and earn enough to comfortably pay off your loan. This is why there is often no credit check - your ability to repay is based on your likely future earnings rather than your history.
Many students end up having to take on multiple loans throughout their undergraduate and post graduate careers, and all of these loans have to be repaid after graduation. Repayments can usually be deferred while you are still in school, and then there is generally a grace period between graduation and having to start making the first of your repayments on federal loans (this is currently nine months on a Stafford loan and six months on a Perkins loan). Once repayments start, though, if you have multiple separate student loans it can be difficult to organize your finances, and you may be paying back more each month than you can comfortably afford in your first professional job.
This is where student loan consolidation can help. By consolidating all of your existing student loans into one loan, you only have to make one payment a month to cover all of your debts, which is generally vastly more convenient. You can also reduce your monthly outgoings by taking out your consolidation loan over a longer period. This does mean that you will end up paying more in total on your loan, as having it for a longer period will allow more interest to accrue, but it can be prudent to take out the lower repayments over a long period while you are starting out in your career and then switch to higher repayments later when your income increases, so that you can avoid this while still enjoying lower monthly outgoings while you are still on a new graduate salary.
Even if all of your loans come from the same provider, it can make sense to consolidate - your lender will simply repackage your existing debt into a new loan with new terms.
If you think you may benefit from consolidating your student loans, speak to your lenders and see what kind of deals are on offer, and do some research - if you work out the different financial impact on you both now and over the long term course of your repayments, you will be able to establish what the best course of action is to take with regard to your student debt.
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