The financial news that actually matters
If you’re one of the millions of federal student loan borrowers still enrolled in the SAVE repayment plan, your servicer is about to send you a letter that demands a decision. Starting July 1, 2026, loan servicers will begin notifying SAVE enrollees that they must choose a new, legally authorized repayment plan within 90 days….
A parent who borrowed $40,000 in federal PLUS loans to help a child get through college could see monthly payments spike by more than $200 this summer. The only thing standing between that parent and a permanently higher bill is a single consolidation application, filed before June 30, 2026. Under changes set in motion by…
For nearly two years, about 7.5 million Americans have not made a single student loan payment. Not because they refused, but because a federal court killed the repayment plan they were on, and the government put their accounts on ice while it figured out what to do next. That limbo is about to end. Starting…
The sticker price of a college degree just got more expensive to finance. Beginning July 1, 2025, every undergraduate who takes out a new federal Direct Loan will pay a fixed interest rate of 6.52%, according to the Department of Education’s annual rate announcement. That marks the highest rate on new undergraduate federal loans since…
Since October 2024, roughly 3.6 million federal student loan borrowers have fallen into default, according to portfolio data published by the Federal Student Aid Data Center. That figure alone is alarming. The profile behind it is worse: the typical defaulter is around 40 years old and, based on the age distribution and repayment patterns in…
Roughly 8 million federal student loan borrowers are about to lose the repayment plan they signed up for, and the clock to pick a replacement is already running. The U.S. Department of Education has declared the SAVE plan unlawful and is winding it down. Loan servicers have begun sending notices to affected borrowers, each triggering…
A parent who borrowed $40,000 in federal PLUS loans and earns $55,000 a year could be paying roughly $500 a month under the only income-driven repayment plan that will remain available to them after June 30. Under a more generous plan they can still access today, that same parent might pay closer to $150. The…
A parent borrowing $30,000 through the federal PLUS loan program this fall will pay roughly $17,200 in interest over a standard 10-year repayment term. Four years ago, when the same loan carried a rate of 5.30%, that interest bill would have been about $8,700. The difference, more than $8,500, buys nothing: no extra credits, no…
Students taking out federal loans for the 2026-27 academic year are on track to pay 6.52% interest, a rate that would be the steepest for new undergraduate borrowers since 2024-25, when the rate hit 6.53%. The increase reverses a brief dip during the 2025-26 cycle, when the rate fell to 6.53%’s predecessor of 6.53%. Once…
In the first three months of 2025, nearly one in four Americans who financed a new car committed to paying it off over seven years. That 22.9% share, reported in Edmunds’ Q1 2025 market analysis, has roughly doubled from the sub-12% level recorded in 2018. Over the same stretch, the average monthly payment on a…