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"If you&amp;#039;re struggling with student debt, or your adult child is, you&amp;#039;re not alone. Around 50 percent of full-time college students borrow money, up from 34 percent in 1992. After graduation, young singles may bunk at the Mommy Hotel until they can get rid of their debt. Young couples at the altar are pledging to love, honor, and support each other&amp;#039;s loan repayments. You have to start paying back student loans six months after leaving school, and initially get 10 years to do so. Most people manage. But if you&amp;#039;re in a low-paying job or live in an expensive city, your monthly payments may weigh you down. You can lower your payments by consolidating your student loans. That means packing them into a single loan and stretching out the term. Lower payments give you breathing room. &amp;quot;It really helped this poor first-year teacher/single mom,&amp;quot; Michelle from Jackson Center, Ohio, told Good Housekeeping Online.  On the other hand, if you lower your payments, you might increase spending in other areas. Then you&amp;#039;ll be just as squeezed as you were before, but with extra years of student-loan payments (plus extra interest) on your hands. If possible, get the agony over with. But if you&amp;#039;re like Michelle, look into consolidating. You can do it with all your government-backed student loans, including loans you&amp;#039;ve taken for studies in the health professions. No collateral is required, and no credit check. Choosing a Consolidation Plan  Both the government and private lenders offer consolidation plans. Which you choose depends on what you need. The government will consolidate \u2014 or refinance \u2014 one or more student loans of any amount. It charges variable interest rates, capped at 8.25 percent and based on the loans&amp;#039; original rates. Only the government will consolidate defaulted loans (although you won&amp;#039;t be accepted if you have a legal judgment against you). For information and an application, call (800) 557-7392 or go to ed.gov. Private lenders generally consolidate two or more loans worth at least $7,500. Their interest rates are usually fixed. At this writing, they match the government&amp;#039;s 8.25 percent cap. Ask your lender about loan consolidation, or check with Sallie Mae, a private organization that services student loans (800-524-9100 or salliemae.com). Also inquire about any other fees. Extending Your Payments  There are four ways to extend your payments: 1. An extended repayment plan. You make fixed monthly payments over a longer term. Your maximum term will be 10 to 30 years, depending on the size of your debt. Say, for example, that you&amp;#039;re paying $184 a month on a $15,000 loan at 8.25 percent. If you paid for two years, then stretched the remaining loan over 15 years, your payment would drop to $125. You&amp;#039;d pay $4,862 more in interest over the term of the loan. 2. A graduated repayment plan. You repay over the same length of time allowed in the extended plan. But your payments start low and rise in later years. This arrangement works well if your first job pays peanuts, but your income gradually goes up. Graduated repayments also cost you extra interest over the loan&amp;#039;s term.  3. An income-sensitive plan, offered by private lenders. Your payments are pegged to the size of your monthly income. You can pay as little as 4 percent of what you earn (as long as it covers at least the current interest due), or as much as 25 percent. You will also have to document your income annually, so that payments can be reset. 4. An income-contingent plan, offered by the government. The size of your monthly payment depends on your income. If it&amp;#039;s minuscule, you&amp;#039;ll pay zero. At most, you&amp;#039;ll pay 20 percent of your discretionary income. If your minimum payment isn&amp;#039;t enough to cover the interest on your debt, that unpaid interest is added to your loan balance. If you still have a balance due after 25 years of payments, the rest of your loan will be forgiven, but the amount not collected will be reported as taxable income. More Tips  The Smartest Way to Consolidate Pack all your loans into a single payment, take the shortest term possible (10 years), and pay off your loan in an even shorter period of time.  Warning to Married Couples You can consolidate your loans into one with a single monthly payment. But you&amp;#039;ll both be responsible for repaying it, even if you split up. Best advice: Consolidate separately. It doesn&amp;#039;t cost you more. Parents Can Consolidate Too This is for parents who used government-backed PLUS loans to send their kids to school. Maximum interest rate: 9 percent. You generally have to pass a credit check to qualify, or get a qualified person to co-sign.  Don&amp;#039;t Default! You might think that the government won&amp;#039;t come after you if you simply quit paying. But here&amp;#039;s what readers told us online:  &amp;quot;It will ruin your credit. Plus the government will find you and garnish your wages [S.L.J. from Oregon].&amp;quot;  &amp;quot;They will hit you with late penalties and interest. It&amp;#039;s going to take me thirteen years to pay them off [Caz in Brooklyn, New York].&amp;quot; &amp;quot;I know someone who had a hard time buying a car, and pays an astronomical interest rate because her credit record shows a defaulted student loan [T.C. in Houston].&amp;quot; &amp;quot; Pay the darn thing, cuz they will catch up! [Regina].&amp;quot; So true! Final note: If you&amp;#039;re really too broke to pay, the government lets you defer payments for up to three years. 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<http://www.goodhousekeeping.com/life/money/advice/a16159/paying-student-loans-1000/>