The Department of Education announced on Monday that major collections efforts against millions of defaulted federal student loan borrowers will be resuming in a matter of weeks. These efforts will include involuntary collections activities that allow the government to intercept tax refunds, offset Social Security payments, and garnish wages from employment, all without a court order. The announcement comes as student loan borrowers are facing unprecedented pressures. The repayment system is mired in turmoil, student loan forgiveness is blocked or threatened across several programs, and the department faces severe personnel reductions following mass firings and resignations. Millions of borrowers are…

We’ve all seen him. That charming, confident man with a nice watch, smooth talk, and big dreams—who turns out to be financially allergic to stability. He talks like a CEO but lives like a couch surfer. Sister, let’s not get it twisted: broke men rarely look broke anymore. They come in designer sneakers and “business plans” that have been in beta since 2019. So how do you know when a man is financially fraudulent? Let’s break it down—with receipts. 1) He Lives On Lifestyle Credit: He picks up dinner at Nobu, but he’s dodging his student loan payments. That’s not…

A charging order creates a lien on the interest of a debtor who owns an interest in a limited liability company and an order that distributions will be paid to the creditor until the judgment is satisfied. Many states have modified their LLC laws to prevent that lien from being foreclosed and the interest sold. One of those states is New Jersey, the LLC Act of which also provides that a court may not order a debtor’s LLC interest to be foreclosed upon. But how will that stand up to an enforcement action by the IRS? We find our answer…

Seeking Student Loan Forgiveness? Consolidating Student Loans Right Now Could Be A Huge Mistake If you’re racing toward student loan forgiveness, whether through Public Service Loan Forgiveness or an Income-Driven Repayment plan, one false move could wipe out years of progress: consolidating your federal loans at the wrong time. Loan consolidation can be a valuable tool in some cases, but in 2025, it comes with unique risks. Thanks to legal upheavals in the student loan system, federal borrowers who consolidate now may see their qualifying payment counts reset to zero, erasing the credit they’ve earned toward loan cancellation. In today’s…

Regarding expenses, retirees are particularly vulnerable to the impacts of higher costs. With fixed or limited income, the threats and implementation of tariffs plus the effect of years of relatively high inflation rates has taken their toll. If you’re already feeling stretched at the checkout aisle, the problems are likely to get worse and here’s what you need to do to prepare. Invest in Inflation Resistant Assets When you put your money in a high-yield savings account, you may get a reasonable interest rate, but it often lags behind inflation. This is fine for short-term funds, as you still want…

University of Southern California professor and storytelling sage Robert McKee said this about character: “True character is revealed in the choices a human being makes under pressure—the greater the pressure, the deeper the revelation, the truer the choice to the character’s essential nature.” Now, you may wonder how I will bridge from something as profound as character-building—or, indeed, revelation—to personal finance, or whether that is simply a bridge too far. But I assure you that it is not. Because personal finance—and especially investing—is more personal than it is finance, market volatility is not just a financial hurdle, but a personal…

The Trump administration took new steps this week that could jeopardize student loan forgiveness for thousands of Americans based on their public service careers. And this is just the latest in a series of actions that threatens to undermine a bedrock of the federal student loan relief system. Public Service Loan Forgiveness, or PSLF, was signed into law in 2007 by President George W. Bush. The program incentivizes borrowers to work in traditionally lower-paying fields in the nonprofit or government sectors. Those who repay their federal student loans while working in qualifying, full-time employment for at least 10 years (while…

Despite the headlines surrounding the Department of Education, upwards of $90 billion in new student loans will be issued this fall to families attending college. At the same time, there’s a lot of uncertainty around what repayment plans and loan forgiveness options will be around when these kids graduate. The SAVE income-driven repayment plan that gave so many borrowers so much hope is essentially dead as well, after the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals upheld an injunction blocking its implementation. All the while, costs for higher education and our collective national student loan debt (currently somewhere between $1.6 and $1.7…

The United States captain, Lindsey Heaps prepares to take on two of her national team colleagues on Saturday, one of eleven members of the squad playing in Europe. Heaps (née Horan) is one of a select group of United States internationals to have won the Champions League having played for Lyon in their 2022 victory in the competition. This season, she is one of five players from the country still involved at the semi-final stage (a sixth Mia Fishel is ineligible to play this season). Facing Arsenal in the semifinals, with the first leg in London on Saturday, Heaps will…

Student Loan Borrowers Are Still In The Dark About Processing Timelines Borrowers are anxiously awaiting news on when their income-driven repayment or public service loan forgiveness student loan applications will finally be processed’; and the Education Department has yet to announce a concrete timeline. After a brief shutdown, the Department recently reopened applications for income-driven repayment plans but offered no timeline for processing them. With over one million borrowers’ applications awaiting review, advocates worry that some borrowers may be waiting “months, if not years,” to see their loans forgiven​, as a recent court filing noted. Education Department Gives No Timeline…