I work in financial aid, there are essentially two student loan programs. One is called the William D. Ford Federal Direct Loan Program(Direct Loan) which is funded by Uncle Sam. The other is the Federal Family Education Loan Program(FFELP) which is funded by private lenders. They are identical to each other, by law, except for where the money originates from to fund the loan, the government, or the banks. Almost all are sold off to the secondary market eventually to be serviced by, most likely, Sallie Mae. The programs used to have about equal market share but the Direct Loan program seems to be winning the battle as schools choose to be Direct Lenders more often than not. Now there is also the Perkins Loan program but those are campus based and are dwarfed by the other two. All are capable of being consolidated.
Rochester is a Direct Loan school so the only other loans that she could have taken out are called alternative loans. These are loans made by banks to credit worthy individuals for educational expenses. Students can rack up quite the bill if Mommy and Daddy co-sign on an alternative loan. So unless she had an alternative loan, the big, bad government is the one that lent her the money, not a private bank.