When you are going to college, especially with the huge cost of a college education these days, you probably got a student loan and perhaps even multiple student loans. This gets you through college but the bad news is that at some rapidly-approaching point in the future, you are going to have to start paying those loans back.After you have graduated from college, it is a busy time for you as you are getting started looking for the right job, hopefully a job that is within your major area of study. You might also be looking to relocate for that job, so finding a house or a new apartment also plays into everything you have going on. With all these moving parts, it can make it very difficult to focus on your new job and everything else when you know that you need to start paying back those student loans.If you are still in college, you are in good shape because you are not yet at the point of needing to start paying back those student loans, but very prudent advice would be to not wait until you graduate before you start thinking about how you are going to be able to take care of that huge financial burden.Do you think you might have to file for bankruptcy? Think again. Federal student loans are exempt from being discharged by bankruptcy of any chapter, so even if you declare bankruptcy to get your fresh start in life, your student loans are still going to exist and need to be paid back.A student loan consolidation will take your student loans, as well as other bills you might have racked up like credit card bills, and put them all into a lump sum that you can take to a student loan consolidation company. This is also known as debt consolidation but the whole process makes incredible financial sense for you. What the company does is to work out a payment plan with you depending on your budget, and they will even help you to establish a budget if you don’t already have one. Then you will make one payment to the student loan consolidation company every month, and they will in turn make payments to your creditors and also towards your student loans.Note that this is not a loan in the traditional sense of the word. They do not give you a lump sum of money to pay off your student loan. Rather, they distribute money that you send them every month to make payments to your creditors. This is an important point, since if you miss your payment to them in a given month, then they are not going to make the payments to your creditors, which puts you in even worse shape than you are now.Why do this at all? Because it can give you the financial breathing room you need right now as you get yourself established. For example, if the sum total of your credit card payments and student loan payments is say $2500 per month, after getting setup with the student loan consolidation company, your payments to cover those same bills might only be $1500 per month. It also keeps your credit report intact, without all the long-term negative things that a bankruptcy filing would do to your credit report.Consider a student loan consolidation program today, even if you are still in college, so that you can be prepared to hit the ground running when you graduate.