July 1, 2028 sounds distant, but it is the real deadline the Department of Education has set for a group of federal student loan borrowers who are easy to overlook: people whose loans predate this summer’s repayment overhaul. Borrowers with loans made before July 1, 2026, who are still sitting in one of the phased-out…

A teacher who spent two years in an ineligible forbearance while the SAVE Plan worked its way through federal court assumed she could eventually buy back that time toward Public Service Loan Forgiveness. New Department of Education guidance says she can no longer count on that if she enrolls in either of the two newest…

Applying for an income-driven student loan plan has always meant proving what you earn, and for years that meant digging up pay stubs or a tax transcript and uploading them by hand. The Department of Education says there’s now a faster path built into the same application: give the department permission to pull the number…

Every income-driven student loan plan before this year had the same quiet flaw: a borrower could make every payment on time and still watch their balance grow, because the payment wasn’t large enough to cover the interest piling up each month. The Department of Education says its new Repayment Assistance Plan is built to close…

Borrowers working toward Public Service Loan Forgiveness have one job: rack up 120 qualifying, on-time monthly payments while employed full time by a government agency or qualifying nonprofit. The Department of Education says the single easiest way to avoid the missed payment that can slow that count is enrolling in automatic payments, and the agency…

The SAVE repayment plan hasn’t been a legal option for federal student loan borrowers since a court order ended it in March 2026, but millions of borrowers were still parked inside it while the Department of Education worked out what came next. That transition is happening now. Servicers began notifying the plan’s roughly 7.5 million…

The federal government’s newest student loan discount comes with a shelf life. Borrowers who keep their payments on auto pay get a full percentage point knocked off their interest rate, but the Department of Education built two hard boundaries into the offer: a calendar cutoff on how long the discount lasts, and a loan-vintage cutoff…

Federal student loan borrowers who pick the new Tiered Standard repayment plan no longer get one fixed payoff timeline. Since July 1, 2026, the plan sorts every borrower into one of four repayment lengths, 10, 15, 20 or 25 years, based entirely on how much they owe, not their income, their job, or how fast…

The average rate on a 30-year fixed mortgage climbed to 6.71% last week, the highest weekly reading Freddie Mac has recorded so far in 2026. That’s up from 6.66% the week before and 6.50% at this time a year ago, according to the mortgage giant’s own weekly survey. For anyone shopping for a home loan…

Most people who took out a federal student loan before 2020 had their monthly bill pulled automatically from a checking or savings account every month. That habit broke during the multi-year pandemic freeze on federal loan payments and interest, and for a majority of borrowers it never came back. The Department of Education says that…