Reset student loans on a personal loan

[Matthew Jones]

Hey everyone, I'm new here but thought it couldn't hurt to seek a second opinion before I sign on the dotted line.

My credit file is pretty clean of any collections except for some federal student loans that were sold off to a collections company. How/why isn't all that interesting of a story. But I can no longer negotiate them through the federal system and can only work with that collections company.

My strategy is to take out a personal loan for $13k and pay off *all* my default student loans at once.

The unsecured personal loan rate is 25% along with a couple hundred dollar fee.. but no penalty for early repayment. I'm planning on having that loan completely paid off within a year.

But I'm not planning to get stuck paying 25% interest. The goal is to refinance my personal loan within 3 months or so for better rates and terms once I no longer have any collections or charge-offs on my credit report. That, in theory, should open my rate options for around 10%.

How does my strategy sound? Do I have better options?