 TITLE: Should I Refinance or Consolidate My Student Loans? CONTENT: How Do Refinancing and Consolidation Work?\n------------------------------------------\nIf you're having trouble affording your student loan payments, loan refinancing and consolidation are two options you might be exploring. Both can simplify your loan repayment and reduce your payments, but they share few similarities beyond that.\nRefinancing replaces one or more existing loans with a new one through a private lender, while consolidation goes through a program with the federal government and is only available for federal student loans. Here's a quick summary of how they differ: END