Consolidate

You took out student loans from the federal government. All of this debt is spread across multiple loans, because you have to reapply with Uncle Sam every year. So, after school is over, you take out a new loan to pay off all of these other loans combined. Multiple debts are consolidated into one single loan, with one payment date and a single interest rate.

Another way to think about consolidation: you have multiple credit cards, and take out a new card and shift all of this debt into a single account. You’ll get far fewer bills in the mail, but you might end up hurting your credit report if you close your oldest accounts and pile debt into a single new account.