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I would rehab the student loans because it will be the best boost to your score and credit profile over-all.
The loans may still have the lates reporting, but some servicers delete them. More imporantly, the default will come off.
In addition, you'll have nice, long positive tradelines which will contribute to your credit mix/history and score.
If you consolidate, you'll have negative charged off accounts that don't go away until 7 years after their DOFDs and a new loan, which will drop your average age of account. It's not great for scoring purposes.
When I rehabbed, once upon a time, I couldn't afford the payments and the company worked with me to come up with something we were both OK with, so you can try to work with them and explain your situation if the repayments are truly too high. If not, you may just have to tighten your belt a bit.
Since you are looking at a year out, now would be a good time to get a rehab rolling, because that might/should be enough time for everything to shake out on your credit report.
Consolidation would get everything straightened out a lot sooner, but you'll have a lot of negatives you can't remove, and I don't think it's the best option (here or in general).
Full disclosure: I've done both a rehab and consolidation; my consolidation is more recent (last year) and both were from defaults, so I have first hand experience with both.
I'm glad we could help! We're here if/when you have more questions - good luck!