You are screwed. Student loan rates are calculated by taking the weighted average of the base rates rounded up to the nearest 1/8 of 1 % locked and fixed for the life of the loan. Once you elect to fix you have locked in that portion at the higher rate. If you take out additional loans you can reconsolidate but the weighted avg calculation works against you. With an 8% interest rate your best bet would be to open up a 0 percent credit cards and put all normal expenditures on the 0%. that would free up your money to then put towards the higher rate student loan. Make sure you leave yourself enough of a cushion to be able to pay down the credit card in full by the expiration of the 0% period. Rinse and repeat until the loan is paid off. You may also want to see if your existing lender is giving you the .25 % discount for auto pay and check to see what benefits they gave you when you initially consolidated.
When I graduated interest rates were 2.77 %. Using the calculation this rounded up to a fixed rate of 2.875. I set up auto payment which then gives you a .25 percent discount and received a 1 % interest rate reduction for making 36 months of on time payments. This brings my fixed rate down to 1.625. Because the lender was selling these things at 6 points on the dollar they paid me 3% cash back after making the first payment to offset my previous lender benefits on the loan. Seemed to be te biggest no brainer of all time.
