Consolidate Your Federal Student Loans

Here's my article.
Much to my surprise, the story ran on top of today's paper, right below the banner. I guess the two days of constant calling paid off.
But the point is that this probably applies to most of you. Rates are going up by almost two percent on July 1. If you have more than $5,000 in Federal loans, you need to talk to somebody about consolidating. It can literally save you thousands of dollars because consolidating lets you lock into the 2.875 percent rate that's offered now. You can also extend your payment period, and you only have to pay one bill instead of three or four.
The only downside is that you have to waive your 6-month grace period if you consolidate, meaning you'll have to start paying right away after you graduate. But if you consolidate while you're still in school, your repayment will be delayed until you get out of school.
But the applications need to be received by June 30. Otherwise you get the 5.375 rate. And the fed is likely to bump up the interest rate by another percent, according to the Wells Fargo economist I talked to, which probably means that student loan rates will go up by the same amount.
It was pretty bemusing how flat the college loan stories that ran on other papers were. Most of the time the papers ran a bastardized AP copy that was about 8 grafs long. Almost none of the stories explained what the consolidation process actually entails.
I got this story assigned to me when my editor gave me the same AP wire story. I think a lot of papers can benefit from writing deeper, more complete stories based on some of the wire copies. You guys should look around and see if there's something that you think was underreported. If you find one, you should try to run with it. I think the readers deserve more than just a terse, generic stories for topics that affect them directly.