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Latest in Loans & Lending
Federal student loan rates jump to 6.52% on July 1 — and the 30-year Treasury at 5% means there’s no relief coming
A college freshman who signs a federal loan promissory note after July 1 will pay 6.52% interest on every dollar borrowed, locked in for the...
The defaulted borrowers aren’t who you’d expect — the average student loan defaulter is 40 years old and was making payments before the pandemic paused collections
When federal student loan collections officially restarted in May 2025, the government was not chasing down recent college dropouts. It was coming for people like...
The new student loan repayment plan launches July 1 — it caps payments at 10% of income, takes 30 years to forgive, and replaces every IDR plan
A borrower who signs a federal Direct Loan promissory note on July 1, 2026, will face a choice that did not exist a month earlier:...
3.6 million student loan borrowers defaulted since October — and the average defaulter is 40 years old and was current on payments before the pandemic
They paid on time for years. Then the system restarted, and millions of them stopped. Since federal student loan payments resumed in October 2023 after...
Parent PLUS loan rates climb to 9.07% on July 1 — the cost of borrowing to send your kid to college just hit its highest point since 2007
A parent borrowing $30,000 this fall to help cover a child’s tuition will owe roughly $382 a month for the next decade and pay about...
Federal student loan rates jump to 6.52% on July 1 — the highest borrowing rate for undergrads in three years
A college freshman enrolling this fall and borrowing the maximum federal Direct Loan will pay a fixed interest rate of 6.52%, the highest undergraduate borrowing...
Student loan delinquencies jumped to 10.3% — the highest since 2020 — and defaulted borrowers are also falling behind on credit cards, auto loans, and mortgages
For more than three years, millions of Americans with federal student loans made no payments at all. The pandemic-era freeze, which began in March 2020...
Parent PLUS loan rates climb to 9.07% on July 1 — the cost of borrowing to send your kid to college just hit its highest point since 2007
A parent borrowing $30,000 through the federal PLUS loan program for the 2025-2026 school year will pay roughly $382 a month for 10 years and...
The new student loan repayment plan launches July 1 — it caps payments at 10% of income and takes 30 years to forgive
Roughly 8 million federal student loan borrowers who were enrolled in the now-defunct SAVE plan are about to land in a new repayment structure they...
Subprime auto loan delinquencies just hit a 32-year record — and unemployment is 4.3%, not 9% like the last time car defaults were this bad
Picture a borrower with a 520 credit score who financed a used pickup in 2023 at 14% interest. The monthly payment: $587. Today that borrower...
The average new car payment just hit $773 a month — and 1 in 5 buyers is now locked into payments above $1,000
A $773 monthly car payment would have been unusual five years ago. Now it is the average. According to Edmunds’ Q1 2026 auto financing data,...
7.5 million borrowers just lost the SAVE plan — they have 90 days to switch or the government auto-enrolls them in a plan that could triple monthly payments
On July 1, federal loan servicers will begin mailing notices to every borrower still enrolled in the SAVE repayment plan. Each letter will contain a...
Subprime auto loan delinquencies just hit a 32-year record — and the average car payment climbed to $767 a month for a new vehicle
In October 2025, 6.65% of subprime auto borrowers tracked by Fitch Ratings were at least 60 days behind on their car payments. That is the...
The new student loan repayment plan launches in 53 days — and it’s the only income-driven option left after Trump killed SAVE, Grad PLUS, and every other IDR plan
If you owe federal student loans and haven’t been paying close attention, here is the short version: every income-driven repayment plan you’ve heard of is...
Private student loan volume is expected to double after Trump killed Grad PLUS — and 40% of Americans wouldn’t even qualify for a private loan
The federal program that let graduate students borrow up to the full cost of their degrees is gone. Congress eliminated Grad PLUS lending through the...
Student loan borrowers have 59 days to pick a new repayment plan — RAP launches July 1 with a $10 minimum payment and a 30-year forgiveness timeline
Starting July 1, 2026, every new federal student loan will come with repayment rules that break sharply from the system borrowers have known for decades....
The new student loan repayment plan launches July 1 — it requires a $10 minimum payment, takes 30 years to forgive, and replaces every IDR plan you’ve heard of
On July 1, 2026, the federal government will stop offering borrowers a choice among income-driven repayment plans. No more PAYE. No more REPAYE. No more...
The new student loan repayment plan launches July 1 — it requires a $10 minimum payment, takes 30 years to forgive, and replaces every IDR plan you’ve heard of
On July 1, 2026, the federal government will flip a switch that reshapes how millions of Americans repay their student loans. Every income-driven repayment plan...
Student loan collections tighten as federal repayment enforcement ramps up
About 5.3 million Americans with federal student loans are in default, and for the past year, the U.S. Department of Education has sent two sharply...
2 major loan defaults deepen losses for private-credit funds
In the span of roughly 90 days, a direct-to-consumer brand aggregator’s loan went from performing to worthless on the books of one publicly traded credit...