The College Investor Audio Show

A new NBER working paper finds that Tennessee Promise, the nation’s first statewide free community college program, increased college enrollment, boosted degree completion, raised early-career earnings, and generated enough new tax revenue to more than cover its cost. The researchers estimate the program’s marginal value of public funds is infinite, meaning every public dollar spent produced positive benefits at no net cost to the government.The study, from economists at the University of Tennessee, Saint Mary’s College of California, and the Tennessee Office of Evidence and Impact, tracks the program from its 2009 single-county pilot in Knox County through statewide rollout in 2015. Tennessee’s model became the template for the more than 20 states that now offer some version of free community college, most using the same last-dollar structure.The program’s design is simple by financial aid standards. Any Tennessee high school graduate qualifies regardless of income, grades, or field of study, as long as they apply on time, complete mentoring and community service requirements, and enroll at a community college or college of applied technology the fall after graduation. That simplicity make it easy for students to benefit.

Four Senate Democrats want the Department of Education to provide answers on how it spent a $1 billion student loan administration fund created by last year’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act. In a September 2 letter to Education Secretary Linda McMahon (PDF File), Senators Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), Cory Booker (D-N.J.), and Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) say the agency has already spent roughly $216 million from the fund without explaining what it spent them money on. Meanwhile, the number of borrowers in default has climbed to a record high.The $216 million figure comes from the Department of Education’s own Fiscal Year 2027 budget request, which reports that amount obligated as of the start of FY2026 and projects that more than $450 million will still be unspent when FY2027 begins. The senators note that Section 82005 of the OBBBA requires the money to go toward “administrative costs” of the federal student loan program, including servicing, but built in no reporting or oversight requirement.

Rep. Suzanne Bonamici (D-Ore.) reintroduced the Streamlining Income-driven, Manageable Payments on Loans for Education (SIMPLE) Act on September 2, 2026, with six House Democratic cosponsors. The bill (H.R. 10220) would require the Department of Education to contact federal borrowers once they are 31 days past due, show them what they would owe under every income-driven repayment plan they qualify for, and then move them into the lowest-payment plan automatically if they are still delinquent at 75 days.The bill has been sent to the House Education and Workforce Committee and the Ways and Means Committee. NASFAA reports a similar bill was first introduced in 2016 and last reintroduced in 2024, and this version is largely unchanged apart from updates that add the Repayment Assistance Plan (RAP) to the list of eligible income-driven plans.

College athletes are getting paid, and many of them don’t know what to do with it to maximize their long term wealth. The money arrives with no tax withheld, no benefits attached, no HR department explaining anything, and a set of rules that punish anyone who assumes a paycheck is a paycheck.The window is short, too. NCAA data puts the odds of a draft-eligible football player getting drafted at 1.4%, and men’s basketball at 1.0%, while the NCAA’s own GOALS research found roughly 74% of FBS football players believe they’ll go pro. That gap is where the financial damage happens.The money comes from selling their Name, Image, and Likeness, or NIL. And it’s big business in college sports today.Here’s how the money works, what it costs, and what to do with what’s left.

The Education Department has quietly changed how it decides whether continuing graduate students can still borrow uncapped Grad PLUS loans, and the change is already generating denials for students who have been enrolled.During an August 12 Federal Student Aid webinar on the implementation of new loan limits and the interim exception for continuing students, FSA staff told schools to calculate “expected time to credential” using credit hours completed rather than time enrolled. That formula determines how much longer a grandfathered borrower keeps access to Grad PLUS after the program formally ended on July 1, 2026.The National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators called it a significant departure from prior guidance, noting that ED had previously told schools to measure the difference between program length in weeks, months, or years and the portion the student finished before July 1.Education Department spokesperson Ellen Keast told Inside Higher Ed the approach is “not anything new” and had come up in earlier virtual office hours, though the department did not point to where it was written down. When ED finalized the loan limits and new repayment plans, the written record pointed the other way: the final rule text at 34 CFR 685.102 and the department’s May 20 loan limits FAQ both describe the calculation in terms of time.

As of July 1, 2026, new Parent PLUS borrowers are capped at $20,000 per dependent student per year and $65,000 for that student's entire undergraduate career. Before this change, Parent PLUS went all the way up to the school's full certified cost of attendance.For families at expensive schools, that program was the entire plan. It closed whatever the aid package didn't, and it did so without much scrutiny. The problem you notice - $20,000 per year doesn’t translate to $65,000 if your child attends college for 4 or even 5 years… that’s a problem.In partnership with Student Choice, we’re going to break down what borrowing for college looks like, and why you may want to consider an education line of credit.

Borrowers chasing Public Service Loan Forgiveness have spent the past two weeks watching their qualifying payment counts move in the wrong direction. Some lost six months. Some lost more.The fear running through borrower forums is that the Trump administration is quietly unwinding PSLF, or reversing the one-time income-driven repayment account adjustment that brought millions of borrowers years closer to forgiveness. Based on the accounts we’ve reviewed and what the Department has confirmed on the record, that is not what’s happening.What is happening is narrower, more technical, and because the Department has explained almost none of it publicly, considerably more damaging to borrower trust than it needed to be. A banner on StudentAid.gov has told borrowers only that their counts are wrong and that a fix is coming. And here’s what were seeing analyzing dozens of reports and borrower accounts.

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) announced on August 17 that he will introduce the Stop Social Security Garnishment Act of 2026, a bill that would permanently bar the federal government from seizing Social Security payments to collect defaulted federal student loans. Senators Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and Ed Markey (D-MA) are cosponsoring the bill, which comes as more than 9 million borrowers are in default (nearly 1 in 4 Americans with federal student loans).The bill itself (PDF File) amends Title IV of the Higher Education Act to add a new Section 493E, which states that no payments due under the Social Security Act can be offset under the federal debt collection statute when a borrower defaults on a federal student loan. The protection would cover retirement benefits and Social Security Disability Insurance, and would take effect immediately if the bill passes.

College is not a risk-free investment - and one $15-a-month decision can save families from a five-figure mistake. GradGuard CEO John Fees breaks down the hidden risks most parents never budget for, from tuition loss and academic fees to dorm fires, theft, and accidental damage that can turn move-in season into a financial disaster.Host Robert Farrington and John Fees get specific about what actually happens when a student leaves school for medical or mental health reasons, why one in three freshmen don’t return, and why the most important college costs are often the ones schools don’t refund. You’ll discover how tuition insurance really works, why the “renter’s insurance” label can hide major exclusions, and what makes a policy a true no-gotcha safety net for college families.John shares the real-life claims that have shaped GradGuard, including dorm sprinkler disasters that can trigger more than $60,000 in damage, the electronic limitations buried in many standard policies, and why pre-existing conditions, concussions, mono, and other legitimate disruptions matter more than most families realize. He also explains why schools are cash dependent, why housing and academic fees are rarely covered, and how the right policy can give students a do-over instead of a permanent financial setback.If you’re sending a freshman to campus, paying tuition out of pocket, using a 529, or carrying student loans, this episode is essential listening before classes start. It’s a practical guide to protecting one of the biggest investments your family will ever make - and avoiding the kind of regret that comes from learning too late what your policy actually covers.John Feesis the CEO of GradGuard, the college protection platform known for tuition insurance and dorm renters insurance for hundreds of schools nationwide.Robert Farringtonis the founder of The College Investor and hosts the conversation, helping families make smarter decisions about paying for college.

The U.S. Department of Education released a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking on August 19, 2026 that would rewrite the rules governing how college accreditors are recognized. Accreditors are the private organizations that decide which schools can access federal student aid.The proposal has a 30-day comment window, half the 60 days the Department often allows, which puts the deadline around late September. If you’ve followed how Education Department rulemaking works, you’ll notice the compressed timeline as a signal the Department wants this finished fast.The urgency is because this rule is one of the last regulatory puzzle pieces designed to reign in college costs. Accreditors act as gatekeepers to more than $100 billion a year in Pell Grants and federal student loans. Under Secretary Nicholas Kent framed the proposal as a correction for a system that has “contributed to inflated tuition, administrative bloat, and ideology-driven mandates on college campuses.”

The U.S. Department of Education filed its reply brief in support of its motion to dismiss in Havens v. U.S. Department of Education on August 17, 2026, closing out the briefing schedule in the last lawsuit still trying to revive REPAYE for roughly 7 million former SAVE borrowers. The filing asks the judge to dismiss the case.Hours earlier, the Education Department’s lawyers filed a Notice of Corrected Filings walking back a factual claim the agency made on July 29. In an earlier brief, the Department told the court that four of five non-party borrowers who submitted declarations “most recently reported incomes of $0,” which would mean their payments would be $0 under any plan and no irreparable harm existed.Those borrowers filed counter-declarations on August 7 saying they had reported real income, either directly or through the IRS. The agency investigated, found the borrowers were right, and blamed “technical errors” with its National Student Loan Data System database. It filed corrected versions of both the brief and apologized. Even so, the agency’s core position that the case should be tossed has not changed.

The Education Department has quietly changed how it decides whether continuing graduate students can still borrow uncapped Grad PLUS loans, and the change is already generating denials for students who have been enrolled.During an August 12 Federal Student Aid webinar on the implementation of new loan limits and the interim exception for continuing students, FSA staff told schools to calculate “expected time to credential” using credit hours completed rather than time enrolled. That formula determines how much longer a grandfathered borrower keeps access to Grad PLUS after the program formally ended on July 1, 2026.The National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators called it a significant departure from prior guidance, noting that ED had previously told schools to measure the difference between program length in weeks, months, or years and the portion the student finished before July 1.Education Department spokesperson Ellen Keast told Inside Higher Ed the approach is “not anything new” and had come up in earlier virtual office hours, though the department did not point to where it was written down. When ED finalized the loan limits and new repayment plans, the written record pointed the other way: the final rule text at 34 CFR 685.102 and the department’s May 20 loan limits FAQ both describe the calculation in terms of time.

American families spent an average of $34,019 on college during the 2025-26 academic year, a 10% increase from $30,837 the year before, according to the annual Salie Mae and Ipsos study How America Pays for College 2026.The increase far outpaced published tuition increases, yet families are not backing away from higher education: 91% call college a valuable investment in their student's future, and 84% say they are confident they made the right financial decisions to pay for it.The 19th edition of the study, based on online surveys of 1,000 undergraduate students and 1,000 parents, arrives at a turning point for college finance. New federal borrowing caps began phasing in for new borrowers this summer, and the survey suggests most families have no idea what's happening with these higher ed reforms.

A coalition of four major unions (the AFL-CIO, AFSCME, the American Federation of Teachers, and National Nurses United) filed a lawsuit on August 11, 2026 (PDF File) in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia challenging the Department of Education's Reimagining and Improving Student Education (RISE) rule on setting graduate versus professional student loan limits.The complaint asks the court to vacate the rule's definition of "professional student" — the definition that determines whether a graduate borrower can access $50,000 per year and $200,000 total in federal loans, or just $20,500 per year and $100,000 total.The unions collectively represent millions of workers, including nurses, teachers, social workers, librarians, and public health employees, which the new rules classify as "non-professional" for student loan borrowing purposes.

An estimated 51.7 million children (91.7% of everyone eligible to enroll in a K-12 school) meet the income test to receive scholarships under the Education Freedom Tax Credit, the federal program launching January 1, 2027, according to a new report released Tuesday by the American Federation for Children. The analysis is the first state-by-state estimate of who can actually receive money from the program, built on Census population estimates, American Community Survey microdata, and HUD income limits.The credit was created as Section 25F of the tax code by the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, the same 2025 law that overhauled federal student loan borrowing.

The Department of Education's Office of Inspector General has put hard numbers on the Trump administration's push to dismantle the agency, and the findings for Federal Student Aid are stark: entire sub-offices responsible for overseeing loan servicers and certifying schools for federal aid were left with no employees at all.The report lands as the Department reverses course. FSA is now hiring roughly 380 workers back and held a two-day hiring fair in Washington, D.C. on July 21 and 22 to fill more than 100 open roles.The flash report covers changes to ED's staffing, operations, contracts, and grants between January 20 and March 31, 2025 - the window that opened with two executive orders directing agencies to prepare for large-scale reductions in force.

A bipartisan group of senators is moving to block at least some of the Trump administration's effort to dismantle the Department of Education.The Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee approved S. 5046 on Thursday by a 13-9 vote, sending it to the full Senate. The bill, introduced July 21 by Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) with Sens. Susan Collins (R-Maine) and Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), would bar the Education Secretary from offloading four of the department's offices onto other agencies.This comes a little more than two weeks after House Republicans sought to make the dismantling permanent with a series of 10 bills completely removing nearly all functions of the Department of Education.

A bill moving quietly through the Senate would let colleges steer students toward state-run and nonprofit student loans without triggering the federal conflict-of-interest rules Congress wrote after the 2007 financial aid kickback scandal.Nearly two decades ago, investigators found that the people students trusted most to give neutral advice (their college financial aid officers) were quietly working for the other side of the table. Financial aid officers held stock in the lenders they recommended. Lenders paid schools a cut of the loan volume they steered. Some financial aid offices let lender employees answer their phones.Because roughly 90% of families take whatever loan their school recommends, a single line on a "preferred lender" list was worth millions to a lender. It also cost borrowers real money, since the school's recommended option is not always the cheapest one.The cleanup produced settlements, resignations, congressional hearings, and eventually a permanent set of federal rules. This proposed law would change the rules back for a small slice of the private student loan market.

Sen. Peter Welch (D-Vt.) and Rep. Joe Courtney (D-Conn.) held a press conference on Capitol Hill last week urging Congress to take up the Student Loan Interest Elimination Act (PDF File), which would set the rate on every existing and future federal student loan to 0%.The press conference marks the lawmakers' second attempt in 2026 to move the bill. Welch introduced S. 4169 in the Senate and Courtney introduced H.R. 8045 in the House back on March 24, 2026, and neither version has advanced out of committee in the four months since. We covered that introduction when it happened.The renewed push arrives as federal default numbers reach levels the system has never recorded before.

Howard University unenrolled 502 incoming freshmen on July 22, weeks before move-in. It has since readmitted more than 200 of them — a roughly 40% reversal of its own decisions. That number alone tells you the university got this wrong. These are families who had already committed to a school where the cost of attendance runs past $66,000 a year.The handling of this entire saga was worse than the decision. Students learned by email that they had lost seats they had spent years earning. Families could not get through by phone. The deadline Howard enforced does not appear on its public-facing pages, and the university's explanation has changed five times in nine days. For most families, paying the college bill is already the most confusing part of the process without a school moving the target.There is also a second thing that is true at the same time, and it matters for every family reading this: some of these students did miss real requirements, and checking your student account is your job. Knowing how to read your financial aid award letter (and what it does and doesn't guarantee) is part of that. Both things belong in this story.

Think about everything your family pays to protect. The phone gets a protection plan at checkout. The car carries full coverage at an average of $2,237 a year, according to Insurify. Even the spring break trip gets travel insurance, which Forbes puts at 4% to 6% of the trip cost.Then tuition comes due (for many families, the largest single payment they ever make) and it goes out the door with no protection at all. If the semester falls apart in week six because of mononucleosis, a concussion, or a mental health crisis, most families discover the refund policy the hard way: there isn't one.

Borrowers who believed the student loan payment pause would keep getting extended (or that their debt would be forgiven outright) cut their payments, spent more, and are now more likely to be delinquent, according to a new National Bureau of Economic Research working paper.Economists surveyed borrowers about their expectations during the pause and the 2022 forgiveness announcement, then linked those responses to credit bureau, employment, and spending data.The key finding: policy uncertainty itself changed borrower behavior, and the costs are still showing up in student loan debt statistics today.

SoFi Technologies told federal securities regulators that its private student loans can be wiped out in bankruptcy under certain conditions, a quiet admission that cuts against one of the most repeated lines in personal finance.The disclosure sits in SoFi's annual report (a Form 10-K filed with the SEC) for the fiscal year ending December 31, 2025. In the Risk Factors section, the company warns investors that its "private education loans may be discharged in bankruptcy in certain situations," including when a court finds the debt is not a qualified education loan or that repayment would cause undue hardship. SoFi adds that a private loan can also be discharged if the borrower dies or becomes disabled.

Student loan borrowers serviced by MOHELA spent this weekend staring at delinquency notices they say should not exist. Accounts that showed $0 due and active SAVE forbearance on Friday flipped to past-due balances ranging from roughly $2,000 to more than $6,700, with some borrowers marked as many as 12 months behind.MOHELA's phone lines are closed on weekends, leaving affected borrowers with no way to reach a human until Monday. The company is one of five servicers handling the federal loan portfolio.

Federal student loan borrowers are reporting a new email from the Department of Education telling them their income-driven repayment application produced an incorrect monthly payment because of an error and that they have to submit an entirely new IDR application to fix it.The email lands in the middle of the tightest deadline window borrowers have faced in years. The Department began sending 90-day notices to more than seven million SAVE plan borrowers on July 1, which puts the decision deadline for the first wave of them at September 29. Anyone forced to reapply is losing days they don't have.

Senator Elizabeth Warren pressed Deputy Treasury Secretary nominee Francis Brooke at a Senate Finance Committee hearing over whether the Treasury Department will resume garnishing Social Security benefits for seniors with defaulted student loans. In the exchange, Brooke could not say how many borrowers are in default and declined to commit to keeping the current pause on Social Security offsets in place.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit unanimously rejected (PDF File) the Department of Education's appeal to delay student loan relief for more than 170,000 borrowers under the Sweet v. McMahon borrower defense settlement, affirming the district court's ruling on July 17, 2026.The judges found the Department failed to show the "changed circumstances" legally required to modify a settlement it agreed to in 2022 and said the agency knew exactly what it was signing up for.

More than 7 million student loan borrowers are being pushed off the SAVE plan in the next few months, and for many, the anxiety is real: after nearly two years of forbearance, they're bracing for a monthly bill they fear they can't afford. But we've been seeing something interesting in our comments on social media - borrowers are surprised that they can still secure a $0 monthly payment on IBR. That makes sense. If historical patterns hold, at least 3 million of these borrowers would still qualify for a $0 monthly payment under Income-Based Repayment (IBR). They just haven't run the numbers yet. That's why borrowers need to use a Student Loan Calculator and see what their expected payments would be.The Department of Education began notifying enrolled borrowers on July 1 that they have 90 days to choose a new repayment plan. Borrowers who don't move in time will be moved into a new plan automatically. That deadline has created a scramble among borrowers who, in some cases, have not made a payment since March 2020.Here's what borrowers might be missing about still having a $0 monthly payment.

Federal agencies cannot terminate grants simply because a new administration decides the money no longer matches its priorities, a federal judge ruled Friday.U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani of the District of Massachusetts granted summary judgment to a coalition of 20 states, the District of Columbia, and the governors of Kansas, Kentucky, and Pennsylvania in their lawsuit against the Office of Management and Budget, Director Russell Vought, and eleven grant-making agencies, including the Departments of Justice, Agriculture, and Homeland Security, the EPA, FEMA, the National Science Foundation, and the National Endowment for the Humanities.The case turned on the "Termination Clause" in 2 C.F.R. § 200.340, an OMB regulation that allows an agency to end a federal award that "no longer effectuates the program goals or agency priorities." Since January 2025, agencies have cited that language to cancel billions of dollars in funding, often with termination letters stating only that the work no longer aligned with agency priorities.

The Justice Department told a federal judge on July 14 that the last active lawsuit trying to stop the SAVE plan shutdown should be dismissed. They argue that the borrowers are suing over a potential tax bomb they ignored by not taking action in 2025, miscalculated payments, forgiveness timelines that wouldn't have made a difference due to the OBBBA, and that the rest of the case amounts to $1,320 the government has already promised to refund if it loses.The 58-page filing in Havens v. U.S. Department of Education opposes the borrowers' request for a preliminary injunction and asks the court to dismiss the case outright.

The Justice Department announced Monday that it is investigating whether Harvard University's financial aid practices discriminate against American students, opening a compliance review under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 focused on scholarship programs funded by China-based donors.At the center of the investigation is a question with implications far beyond just Harvard: can a university accept foreign donations that come with strings attached (specifically, requirements that the money fund financial aid favoring students from particular countries) while also receiving federal dollars that prohibit discrimination based on national origin?"Every American student should have an equal opportunity to compete for college scholarships, grants, and other kinds of financial aid and benefits," said Assistant Attorney General Harmeet K. Dhillon, who leads the Civil Rights Division. "Schools cannot take federal dollars and then turn around and accept money from foreign sources to give financial aid that deliberately excludes American citizens — doing so is illegal, and we will stop it wherever we find it."The department stressed it has not reached any conclusions. Harvard, in a statement to The Harvard Crimson, said it "does not unlawfully discriminate on the basis of race, ethnicity, or national origin in allocating financial aid" and that it is reviewing the letter and will engage with the government.

Americans' confidence in higher education slipped to 38% this year, down from 42% in 2025, according to the new Lumina Foundation-Gallup Confidence in Higher Education survey. The drop erases most of the modest recovery colleges saw last year.The survey, conducted in June 2026, found that 38% of U.S. adults have "a great deal" or "quite a lot" of confidence in higher education, 37% have "some," and 25% have "very little" or none. When Gallup first asked the question in 2015, 57% of Americans expressed strong confidence.

Common Sense Media's Youth AI Safety Institute has given Google Search's AI Overview and AI Mode its lowest possible rating (an "unacceptable risk" for kids and teens) after seven weeks of testing found the features failed all five of the group's severe-harm "Red Lines," fabricated facts with confidence, and cannot be turned off by parents, schools, or users.The assessment, published July 14, 2026, tested more than 2,600 interactions on accounts registered to an 11-year-old and a 15-year-old, both with SafeSearch active.

New IRS data shows that the dreaded 529 plan penalty is far less common, and far less painful, than most families fear.According to the IRS Statistics of Income division's line item estimates for tax year 2023 (the most recent year with data available, released in June 2026) just 165,152 tax returns paid the 10% additional tax on non-qualified distributions from 529 plans and education savings accounts, totaling $76.6 million. That works out to an average penalty of about $464 per return for people reporting 529 plan distributions.Out of the more than 160 million individual returns filed for 2023, roughly 0.1% paid this penalty at all.

Nelnet has quietly revised its end-of-SAVE-plan FAQ to shorten its notice timeline: every 90-day notice from the servicer will now go out by the end of 2026. The FAQ previously said notices would be delivered between July 2026 and March 2027, a window Nelnet has now cut by three months.The updated FAQ states: "Nelnet is notifying nearly three million Nelnet borrowers, so we're reaching out in waves. You'll receive your notice by the end of 2026."

Employer contributions to Trump Accounts become legal on July 4, 2026 — one year to the day after the One Big Beautiful Bill Act created the new children's savings accounts. For small business owners, the launch opens a question worth real money: can your business fund your own kids' accounts with pre-tax dollars?The answer appears to be yes for many owners, but the mechanics matter. The tax break runs through new Internal Revenue Code Section 128, which lets an employer contribute up to $2,500 per year to the Trump Account of an employee or an employee's dependent without the amount counting as taxable income to the employee.For a solopreneur who is also an employee of their own company, that can mean a business deduction on one side and no income tax on the other — a combination that is hard to find elsewhere in the code.But the provision comes with paperwork requirements, contribution caps, and several unresolved questions the IRS has not yet answered. Here is what the rules require, where the opportunity sits for owner-operators, and the mistakes that could undo the benefit.

The job hasn't changed, but the degree required to get it has. Over the past three decades, one profession after another has raised its educational entry price: a bachelor's became a master's...a master's became a doctorate...a short training course became a year of mandatory classes.These new requirements are adding years of tuition and borrowing for careers that pay roughly what they paid before the new requirements were added. The labor market simply doesn't pay more because you got more education.Economists call it degree inflation, and the most surprising part isn't the cost. It's who decides "what's required". In many licensed fields, the degree you must "buy" isn't set by Congress or your state legislature. It's set by private organizations most Americans have never heard of: accrediting agencies.And because of how the higher education system is wired, a single change by one of these groups can raise the required degree standards for an entire profession in all 50 states at once, with no election, no hearing in your statehouse, and no vote by anyone you can vote out.That system is now squarely in Washington's crosshairs. The Department of Education's negotiated rulemaking committee reached consensus on May 21, 2026, on new regulations that would put a stop to this practice. The Department had named "credential inflation" as an explicit target when it launched the committee in January.To understand why that matters for your family's college costs, you first have to understand a system that almost nobody outside higher education knows exists.

A new federal lawsuit is trying to answer a question more than 1.5 million student loan borrowers have been asking: did the Department of Education actually cancel the loans it publicly promised to forgive?The Project on Predatory Student Lending (PPSL) sued the Department (PDF File) on July 1, 2026, in the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts, after the agency sat on fifteen Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests (some for more than two and a half years) seeking records on how it carried out its announced group discharges.The College Investor team has previously filed similar FOIA requests for borrower defense data, the latest with a response in 2023, which took roughly 14 months to process.

Student loan borrowers who applied for the SAVE plan but were never officially enrolled are now receiving denial letters from their loan servicers. These are borrowers who submitted an application for SAVE or an old application selecting the option "Lowest Repayment Plan", but their applications were never actually processed. These borrowers had been in administrative forbearance while waiting for an outcome to their application.Borrowers have 90 days to submit a new income-driven repayment (IDR) application or their SAVE forbearance ends and payments resume on their old plan.Hundreds of thousands of borrowers submitted IDR applications requesting SAVE and have been sitting in a administrative forbearance (some for well over two years) waiting for an answer. That answer has now arrived: denied.Unlike borrowers officially enrolled in SAVE, who get auto-enrolled in the Standard or Tiered Standard plan if they miss their 90-day deadline, applicants who miss the deadline get kicked back to their previous repayment plan, or the Standard plan if they weren't enrolled in a plan before (such as new borrowers leaving college). For many, that could mean a payment far higher than what they expected under an income-driven plan.

A pair of Democratic bills introduced in May would eliminate one of the oldest restrictions in federal student loan policy: the rule that blocks teachers from counting the same years of teaching service toward both Teacher Loan Forgiveness (TLF) and Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF).The Teacher Debt Relief Act (H.R.8815), introduced May 14, 2026 by Rep. Jahana Hayes (D-CT) and endorsed by the National Education Association, would end the prohibition that forces teachers to choose one program or the other for a given service period. Hayes calls it a technical correction, but for teachers, it could shave years off the path to full forgiveness.Here's what to know about the drive to end the double-dipping provision of PSLF and TLF.

Formal 90-day notices began going out to more than 7 million SAVE borrowers on July 1, arriving in waves. Borrowers who don't choose a new repayment plan by their deadline (roughly September 30 for the first group) will be placed on the Standard plan automatically.In response, a common refrain has emerged in comment sections and forums: "I refuse to switch until I'm notified I have to. That way, if any new court action benefits SAVE borrowers, it will still apply to me because I'm technically still registered under SAVE."It makes it sound like waiting in the SAVE forbearance could be a smart move. But when you walk through every scenario that could actually unfold (the pending lawsuit, a forbearance extension, and the even longer-shot wildcards) the strategy delivers almost nothing different that switching wouldn't also deliver, while the costs of waiting increase every month.The simple truth is that waiting only preserves your no-payment forbearance. Your loan balance is growing, you're not making progress towards forgiveness, and the longer you wait, the more likely you are to have even higher payments in the future.Here's what to know about each scenario and how it could impact you as a SAVE borrower thinking about waiting it out.

For most borrowers after July 1, 2026, consolidating federal student loans no longer offers a real upside — and it can quietly erase progress you've already earned towards loan forgiveness. The one situation where it still helps is getting out of default.Consolidation used to be a helpful tool for many borrowers. It turned old FFEL loans into Direct Loans, unlocked income-driven repayment and Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF), and let borrowers capture the one-time IDR account adjustment. Those windows have closed. The adjustment is over, FFEL cleanup deadlines have passed, and the menu of repayment plans is shrinking — so the cost-benefit math has flipped for most people.There is no real requirement for any borrower to consolidate their loans at this point in time, and except for defaulted student loan borrowers, doing so may be more harmful than helpful.

The U.S. Department of Education announced a final rule that will, for the first time, strip federal student loan eligibility from college and career programs whose graduates fail to out-earn workers who never enrolled.The Student Tuition and Transparency System (STATS) and Earnings Accountability rule applies a single standard across every sector of higher education, from public universities to for-profit certificate schools, regardless of an institution's tax status or the credential it awards.The premise is simple: undergraduate programs must demonstrate that their graduates earn more than working adults who hold only a high school diploma. Graduate programs must show their completers earn more than typical bachelor's degree holders. A program that can't clear that bar for two of three years will lose the ability to enroll students who borrow federal loans. That doesn't mean it has to shut down - but the government is not going to continue to lend to students who end up having a bad financial outcome."If a program cannot show that it leaves its graduates financially better off than if they had never enrolled, it should not be underwritten by federal taxpayers," said Under Secretary of Education Nicholas Kent. He pointed to "rising rates of default and delinquency in the $1.7 trillion federal student loan portfolio" as the backdrop for the new framework.The rule is the third and final rulemaking package authorized by the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which President Trump signed on July 4, 2025. It also folds the new earnings standard into the Department's existing Financial Value Transparency and Gainful Employment regulations, replacing what officials described as nearly two decades of regulatory back-and-forth with one test that reaches almost every program and sector.

The biggest overhaul of federal student loans in a generation just took effect. Under the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, borrowers who take out federal loans on or after July 1, 2026 face fewer repayment options, hard borrowing caps, and slightly higher interest rates.While many of these changes apply to new loans going forward, some borrowers do have choices to make. For example, borrowers in the SAVE forbearance will have to start making decisions to change repayment plans. It's important to remember that current borrowers keep their existing fixed interest rates and access to legacy plans like IBR — but anyone borrowing for the coming school year is entering a very different system.

Home / News / ED Expands Professional Degree List to 29 Programs After Court StayED Expands Professional Degree List to 29 Programs After Court StayUpdated: June 30, 2026 By Robert Farrington | < 1 Min Read Leave a Comment (Edit)Many or all of the products featured here may be from our partners who compensate us. This doesn't influence our evaluations or reviews. Our opinions are our own. Investing information is for educational purposes only. Learn more here. The Department of Education has temporarily widened the types of degree programs that qualify for the higher professional-student loan limits, adding fields like physician assistant, physical therapy, occupational therapy, audiology, and several advanced nursing degrees while the agency's narrower rule is paused in court.In Electronic Announcement GENERAL-26-42, posted June 29, ED published an updated list of Classification of Instructional Programs (CIP) codes that schools must treat as professional degree programs for federal loan limit purposes. The list now covers 29 six-digit CIP codes, well beyond the 11 fields ED originally named in its Reimagining and Improving Student Education (RISE) final rule.The change is a direct response to a court order. On June 24, the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia preliminarily stayed part of ED's professional degree definition just days before the rule's July 1 effective date.

A federal judge has thrown out the Department of Education's controversial new Public Service Loan Forgiveness rule, ruling it unlawful one day before it was scheduled to take effect.In a 68-page decision issued June 30, 2026, U.S. District Judge Myong J. Joun of the District of Massachusetts (PDF File) held that the rule was "contrary to law," exceeded the Department's statutory authority, was "arbitrary and capricious," and violated the First Amendment.His order vacated the rule entirely.There's another case in the District of Columbia that's also about this same rule, still waiting on a ruling as of writing.

The two largest faculty unions in the country are drawing a line against three-year bachelor's degrees, just as more states moves to make them real.The American Association of University Professors (AAUP) and the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) issued a joint statement opposing accelerated degrees after Massachusetts approved its first pilot programs. The pushback lands the same week Virginia and Ohio announced a partnership to design their own shorter pathways.It follows a trend of over 60 colleges and university systems working on building three year degree programs.

Syracuse University Chancellor J. Michael Haynie told the community last week that it will not hit its undergraduate enrollment target for the fall and, as a result, will run a budget deficit "something the University has not experienced in quite some time."His letter framed the shortfall as the product of national forces: a shrinking pool of 18-year-olds, fierce competition for students, and a drop in international applications tied to visa problems and federal policy.While that backdrop is true, we believe it to be only partly responsible for Syracuse's downfall. Haynie's letter casts the deficit as the "new normal" for "even strong, well-resourced universities" — a framing that quietly recasts a Syracuse problem as everyone's problem.Syracuse spent the past several years making a series of financial and communication decisions that alienated the very families it now needs. Plenty of peer schools face the same demographic and policy headwinds, but have been seeing record applications and normal enrollment.The "new normal" is true and smaller private universities do face headwinds and risks, but much of what Syracuse is facing is self-inflicted.

The future of student loan repayment for SAVE borrowers has been finalized by a court settlement, and the exodus will start on July 1, 2026 in tranches of individual borrowers.According to the most recent communication from the Department of Education, student loan servicers will begin sending official notices to borrowers in SAVE starting July 1, 2026. These notices will come in tranches, roughly two weeks apart. Once a borrower receives their notice, they will have 90 days to select a new repayment plan. The current available repayment plan options are:StandardTiered Standard (launches on July 1)IBRRAP (launches on July 1)PAYE (ends in 2028)ICR (ends in 2028)When pressed on the final end date for all borrowers, we couldn't get an exact answer.This timeline aligns with our earlier expectation we placed of 70% likelihood that a move would happen July 1

Robert joined the Money Life Show with Chuck Jaffe to talk about the latest updates with student loans: new repayment plan changes and new student loan limits that go into effect this week.If you have student loans, or are planning on borrowing student loans, here's what you need to know.Check out the Money Life Show with Chuck Jaffe here.