Hi Heather!
I have a few questions:  (1) I have had problems with the direct consolidation of my federal loans, maybe I am incorrectly labeling my GradPLUS loans because I keep receiving a message stating I can not use IBR if I consolidate those loans.  Can I not use IBR with my GradPLUS Loans?

(2)  Generally, do you suggest people (working in public interest/civil service) consolidate all their federal student loans, including GradPLUS, or other ineligible PLUS loans that make IBR unavailable, and go for an income contingent payment plan?  What if their GradPLUS or PLUS loans have a substantially higher interest rate in comparison with all their other federal loans (between 2% and 6% points higher)?  Should a person try and consolidate all their federal loans first, to get a lower interest rate on those higher interest rate federal loans (if, lets say, over $60,000 is owed at 8.5% interest in a PLUS loan) or just do a federal consolidation with the loans/interest as they stand?

(3) Do you know if it is possible to have two separate fed. direct consolidation loans?  In this case, one (fed. dir. cons.) loan with two GradPLUS loans and one (fed. dir. cons.) with all the other fed. loans?  I have tried to look through the federal direct website to see if there was info re: applying for two different federal direct loans - but was couldn’t seem to find an answer.  Would this have an impact on my “qualifying” payments re: my public service loan forgiveness?

Thank you!!

IBR is available for GradPLUS loans.  It is NOT available for Parent PLUS loans, or consolidation loans that contain Parent PLUS loans.  Parent PLUS loans are those parents borrower for their dependent children.

I have a hard time thinking of any borrower who would be better off choosing Income CONTINGENT repayment over Income BASED repayment.

As for whether you should consolidate higher interest rate loans separately from lower interest rate loans, that does preserve your ability to repay higher interest rate debt more quickly in order to minimize interest.  It does make everything more complicated, and you’ll want to be careful to keep all your loans and loan records straight.

And yes, you can have more than one Federal Direct Consolidation Loan.  Be sure to keep a close eye on the process, because you are asked to list ALL your loans, not just the ones you want to consolidate, on your consolidation application, and that seems to make the process rather error prone.  Some borrowers hire GL Advisor to handle this process for them.  I have a consulting contract with GL Advisor, and I think they are doing a good job for borrowers, especially those with complicated situations.