If you are a college student or the parent of a student, listen up! You have the opportunity to get the same deal on your student loans as people who have graduated or are graduating this spring. Traditionally, within six months of graduation, students are able to fix the rate on their loans for up to 30 years. Right now, the available rate is about 2.8 percent. If you’ve graduated more than six months ago, you can lock in at about 3.4 percent. But what happens if you’re still in school? Up until now, it’s looked as though you were stuck with the current rate when you graduated. Rates are expected to go up to 5 percent after a few years, for example. But, the U.S. Department of Education has just decided to allow students in school to consolidate all of their qualified loans at the low rate. It’s going to be called “in-school” consolidation. The down side is that you have to start paying the loans right away. You can’t dilly dally on this. A number of people are going to want to do this, and it may not last, so act fast. It applies whether you are in or out of school. You can learn more about this at the U.S. Department of Education site, loanconsolidation.ed.gov. So get moving on this!