Once upon a time, young professionals and college grads who took out personal loans were thought to be financially troubled in a big way.

But after the financial crisis sent more and more college graduates back to school to gain MBAs, PhDs, and more credibility with employers, consolidating student loans has actually become the norm after graduation, said Dave Hardin, president of Hardin Financial Group in Bloomfield Hills Mich.

“If I had taken out a personal loan back in the ’60, anyone that knew about it would have thought that I was desperate,” said Hardin. But “college graduates and student loan debt have created a new scenario where debt consolidation into a fixed-rate personal loan makes sense.

“Today it’s not unusual for a college student to come away with perhaps $100,000 worth of student debt,” he said. “Once you’ve gotten loans for four, five or six years, it makes sense to consolidate them with a personal loan.”

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