The financial news that actually matters
Sometime in July, roughly 7.5 million Americans will receive a letter or email from their federal student loan servicer that amounts to a countdown clock. The message: the administrative forbearance that has shielded borrowers enrolled in the SAVE repayment plan since mid-2024 is ending. Each borrower will have 90 days from the date of that…
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 years, a pattern played out quietly across the U.S. banking system: customers in lawful but politically sensitive industries lost their accounts without being accused of wrongdoing. Congressional testimony and federal investigations documented cases involving firearms dealers, religious organizations, cryptocurrency firms, and advocacy groups on both the left and right. The common factor, according to…
A coffee shop owner in Chicago loses about two cents on every dollar when a customer taps a credit card. That cut, called an interchange fee, goes to the bank that issued the card before the merchant sees a dime. Across every card terminal in the country, those small slices added up to an estimated…
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…
OpenAI wants ChatGPT to know how you spend your money. A new personal finance dashboard, currently in preview for U.S. Pro subscribers, lets users connect bank accounts, credit cards, and investment portfolios through Plaid, the financial data network behind Venmo, Robinhood, and hundreds of other fintech apps. Once linked, users can ask plain-language questions about…
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…
A firearms dealer in the Midwest gets a letter from his bank of 12 years: his account is being closed, no specific reason given. A faith-based nonprofit in Texas discovers its payment processor has frozen donations after an internal “reputational review.” A legal cannabis company in Colorado cannot find a single national bank willing to…