Latest news with #studentloans
Yahoo
an hour ago
- General
- Yahoo
Woman Snaps at Mother-in-Law Over 'Snide' Remarks About Her Remote Work. But Her Husband Says She Was Too 'Mean'
A woman who works from home says her mother-in-law frequently makes rude comments about her job Her husband's mom always jokes that it "must be nice to sit in pajamas all day" Things reached a fever pitch when the mother-in-law made another remark during a dinner — and the woman fired backA woman finally had enough of her mother-in-law's disrespect, snapping back at the woman following a recent rude comment. In a post published to Reddit, the anonymous 28-year-old writes that she works from home as a software developer. Her mother-in-law, she adds, "has never understood or respected that." "Every time she visits, she makes snide remarks like, 'Oh, must be nice to sit in pajamas all day,' or 'Back in my day, we actually had to commute to work,' " she writes in the post. The situation reached a fever pitch at a recent dinner. "During dinner, someone asked what I do, and before I could answer, MIL chuckled and said, 'Oh, she watches Netflix and calls it coding,' " she writes. "Without skipping a beat, I smiled and said, 'Yeah, and that 'Netflix' paid off your son's student loans and bought this house.' " "Everyone laughed. MIL got really quiet," she continues. "After they left, my husband said I was being unnecessarily mean and should've just let it slide." Now, the woman wants to know if she was in the wrong for snapping back. Never miss a story — sign up for PEOPLE's free daily newsletter to stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer, from celebrity news to compelling human interest stories. However, many fellow Reddit users focused less on the two women and more on the husband. "Well maybe if he wants to avoid being humiliated in the future he should make sure he puts a muzzle on his mother so these unfortunate things don't occur any more," one user wrote. Added another commenter: "So many men can't handle even the most minor insinuation that their spouse might be the breadwinner." "He probably enjoyed the idea that people would think he'd paid it off himself, paid for the house himself, or at least contributed the majority of it," someone else chimed in. "Now it's in the open that not only is his mum horrible, he's also not 'the breadwinner' or whatever. Rather the wife, he's let be humiliated for years, is the one who gave him everything." Read the original article on People
Independent Singapore
15 hours ago
- Business
- Independent Singapore
Cracking the code: How the insurance industry can win over Gen Z
As Gen Z, those born between 1997 and 2012, enter maturity, it's restructuring industries worldwide. Branded for their tech eloquence, realistic financial behaviours, and social cognisance and responsiveness, this generation has become the most dominant consumer group. However, despite their expanding economic leverage, there is one industry that's struggling to connect with them—insurance. Many studies expose a conspicuous gap between Gen Z and those within the insurance industry. With Gen Z's acceptance rates and deep-seated cynicism, it's obvious that the conventional approach is not working. However, this challenge also presents a significant opportunity if the industry is prepared to adapt and evolve. A generation largely uninsured According to a 2024 study by the National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC) featured in a recent article from Finance Yahoo, less than 21% of Gen Z adults have renters' insurance. The numbers decrease even further with other major products—only 5% have contents insurance, 24% have life insurance, and 30% have travel insurance. This gap is not merely because of indifference. Since Gen Z individuals are evolving in an environment fraught with economic uncertainties, grappling with rising housing costs, student loan debts, and a volatile job market, insurance becomes a distant concern, a luxury they're considering getting 'someday.' Trust gap and why traditional insurance falls flat Gen Z's unwillingness also came from a profound distrust of legacy financial organisations. Having matured during economic recessions and amid online half-truths, many view underwriters as multifaceted, profit-driven individuals who are difficult to deal with and even harder to trust. There is also a prevalent opinion that insurance is something you need later, once you have a loan, start a family, or develop health problems. Until then, it's easy to depend on the mentality of 'I'll deal with it if something happens.' As a consequence, many Gen Z-ers either postpone insurance decisions or completely disregard them. Bridging the gap with education and digital innovation Approximately two-thirds of Gen Z mention a lack of knowledge and understanding about getting insurance. Likewise, trust is a key barrier to buying one. Even more disturbing, 48.1% of them say that they never think about insurance at all or assume it's already covered in the apps and services they're using. See also Guide to Health Insurance Plans in Singapore (2023) To alter these scenarios, insurance providers must meet Gen Z where they are—online. Affiliating with content makers on platforms such as Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube could help clarify and interpret the fine print. Quick, relevant videos on topics such as how deductibles work or why renters' insurance is important can have a huge influence. Simplify, digitise, and humanise Gen Zers are not anti-insurance—they merely can't see themselves in the way it's presently promoted or designed. With low homeownership rates, economic setbacks, and a preference for speedy, user-friendly digital solutions, they need insurance that feels relevant, accessible, manageable, and reliable. The industry has a fundamental choice to make—continue with 'business as usual,' or advance and transform into a space that speaks directly to this generation. This is not just about transforming a brand; it's a call for an in-depth modification, one that streamlines, digitises, and, most significantly, personalises how insurance is made available.
CNET
21 hours ago
- Business
- CNET
Yes, Student Loan Payments Could Rise for SAVE Borrowers. Here's How to Calculate Yours
If you're enrolled in the Saving on a Valuable Education repayment plan, expect your student loan payments to increase. Getty Images/CNET If you're one of the eight million student loan borrowers enrolled in the Saving on a Valuable Education (SAVE) plan, you may have seen student loan payments as low as $0. With the SAVE plan officially struck down, you might be worried about how much you'll be required to pay in the future. Although the Department of Education offers several other income-driven repayment plans, which cap your monthly bill at a percentage of your discretionary income, SAVE was the most affordable repayment plan to date. That means you should expect a higher monthly payment in the future. "The payment is likely going to go up for borrowers enrolled in SAVE," said Elaine Rubin, a student loan policy expert for Edvisors and CNET Money expert review board member. The earliest SAVE borrowers are expected to restart payments is December of this year, according to the Department of Education. However, many experts think the pause will last even longer, through mid-2026. While the forbearance remains in effect, here's how to calculate how much your monthly payment could increase. What are my payment options when SAVE ends? With SAVE off the table, you'll eventually need to switch to another repayment plan. You currently have three other options for income-driven repayment: Income-Based Repayment, Pay As You Earn and Income-Contingent Repayment. "Each plan has its own eligibility rules and repayment formula," says student loan lawyer Adam Minsky. "Many borrowers will have higher monthly payments under these plans compared to the SAVE plan." Alternatively, you could choose a plan that doesn't base payments on your income. These include the standard plan, graduated repayment and extended repayment. If you're enrolling in the Public Service Loan Forgiveness plan, you'll need to choose an income-driven repayment plan and not a standard plan. How much could my student loan payment increase? Most SAVE borrowers will see their payments increase on other payment plans, including IDRs. How much they might increase varies based on your income, household size and debt. To help you get an idea of how much your student loan payment might rise when the SAVE payment pause ends, I reviewed different options available for a single filer who makes $60,000 a year and has a $30,000 student loan balance at a 6.53% interest rate, using Federal Student Aid's Loan Simulator tool. Under SAVE, you would pay approximately $217 per month or less. Under other plans, you could see your payments rise from $70 to $370 per month. There are two situations where you could lower your monthly payment, but you'd be nearly doubling the amount you'd pay over the lifetime of your loan. Here's what it looks like. Income-Contingent Repayment The Income-Contingent Repayment plan sets your monthly payments to 20% of your discretionary income or what you'd pay on a fixed 12-year plan, whichever is less. Using the $30,000 loan example, here's what repayment would look like on ICR: Monthly payment: $290 Total to be paid: $43,919 End of term date: September 2037 If you qualify for PSLF, you'd pay $35,389 on this plan before getting your remaining balance of $7,884 forgiven in April 2035. Income-Based Repayment The Income-Based Repayment plan sets your monthly payments to 10% of your discretionary income if you borrowed loans after July 1, 2014. If you borrowed before that date, your payment would be set to 15%. This plan has a cap on payments — if your income increases, your payments will never be higher than what you'd pay on the standard 10-year plan. Here's what the payments on that $30,000 loan would look like on IBR: Monthly payment: $312 Total to be paid: $41,473 End of term date: August 2035 If you qualify for PSLF, you'd pay $40,259 on this plan before getting your remaining balance of $1,198 forgiven in April 2035. Pay As You Earn The Paye As You Earn plan sets your payments to 10% of your discretionary income. Like IBR, your payments on PAYE will never go higher than what they'd be on the standard plan. According to the loan simulator, your payments would be the same on PAYE as on IBR based on the $30,000 loan example. Monthly payment: $312 Total to be paid: $41,473 End of term date: August 2035 This is the last plan on this list that qualifies for PSLF. The forgiveness amount would be the same as the IBR plan. Standard Repayment The standard plan doesn't base your payments on your income. It gives you a fixed payment over 10 years. Monthly payment: $341 Total to be paid: $40,932 End of term date: April 2035 Graduated Repayment The graduated repayment plan has you pay off your loans over 10 years, too. However, payments start out lower and increase every couple of years. While your payment would start out lower, you'll see it jumps significantly over time. This plan is best for anyone starting out in a new career who expects to make significantly more money as they progress. Monthly payment: $196 - $589 Total to be paid: $43,916 End of term date: April 2035 Extended Repayment You can qualify for this plan if you owe at least $30,000. It has fixed payments and spans 25 years. You'd see a lower monthly payment with this plan, but since you're spreading out your payments over two and a half decades, you'll end up paying double the amount you borrowed. Monthly payment: $203 Total to be paid: $60,937 End of term date: April 2050 Note: The above payment options could change in the future. Republicans on the House Education Committee recently introduced a proposal that would eliminate many of the plans above for new borrowers and replace them with two options: a Standard Repayment Plan and a Repayment Assistance Plan. The standard plan would have fixed payments ranging from 10 to 25 years, while the Repayment Assistance Plan would base payments on a borrower's total adjusted gross income and waive monthly unpaid interest. Could I save money by refinancing with a private student loan? Refinancing a loan can be helpful for creditworthy borrowers who can qualify for a low interest rate -- but experts generally warn against refinancing if you have federal student debt. Rubin doesn't recommend refinancing if you're counting on federal student loan benefits, working toward PSLF, enrolled in an income-driven repayment plan or living paycheck-to-paycheck. For most borrowers who were enrolled in SAVE, refinancing with a private lender won't make sense. "Even if you're comfortably making payments, if something were to happen, you might find yourself locked into a very challenging situation," Rubin previously told CNET. When you refinance with a private lender, you're giving up your federal student loan benefits. That means you won't qualify for financial hardship assistance, federal payment pauses, federal loan forgiveness or similar benefits. Once you've refinanced with a private lender, you can't reverse the process. How to prepare for a higher student loan payment Borrowers in SAVE may not have owed any money on their student loans since March 2020 when the first federal forbearance period started. As SAVE makes its way through the courts, experts expect repayment to resume at the end of this year or sometime in 2026. Depending on your income and family size, that could mean fitting a sizable bill into your monthly budget. To prepare for that, Rubin recommends: Use the Department of Education's loan simulator to estimate the size of your monthly payment. Speak with a trusted, nonprofit source, such as Edvisors or The Institute of Student Loan Advisors, for advice on applying for and choosing the best repayment plan for your financial circumstances. Talk to a student loan advisor and an accountant about potential tax strategies to lower your adjusted gross income (used to calculate payments in some cases). Review your current finances to find places to cut or move costs (for instance, eliminating subscriptions, slowing other debt repayment or reducing your savings contributions).
ABC News
a day ago
- Business
- ABC News
The government promised to cut my HECS debt. When will I get it?
Before the federal election, Labor made a promise to cut student loan debts like HECS and HELP debts by 20 per cent if it was re-elected. Well, Labor won and the new session of parliament is due to start again in July. So what does that mean for you if you have an outstanding student loan? We answer some of your biggest questions. Nothing. If you still have an outstanding HECS or HELP loan as of June 1 this year, then the cut will automatically be applied by the Australian Tax Office, or ATO. It's important to note here that the tax office isn't going to be giving you cash if you still have a debt. Rather, the cut will be applied to how much you owe and taken off the balance. Federal Education Minister Jason Clare has called the cuts "a game changer" and said they're part of a suite of measures aimed at taking the burden off current students and graduates. "This builds on the changes we made last year to make indexation fairer, and all up this means we are wiping close to $20 billion in student debt," Mr Clare said. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese says it's the first piece of legislation the new government will introduce when it returns on July 22. But the new laws to cut debt will only come into effect AFTER the laws are passed (whenever that is). The cut will be backdated to June 1, before indexation (which adjusts your loan according to inflation) is applied. This year, debts will rise by 3.2 per cent due to indexation. So even though the laws won't come in till after June 1, they'll be applied to the value of your loan before that 3.2 per cent increase hits. Lucy, 28, from Brisbane, has just shy of $9,000 left to pay off on her dual Nursing/Paramedic Science degree. She messaged triple j's Hack to ask if it would make sense to pay it off before being slugged with indexation. "I've been [sacrificing] to pay it off early," Lucy told Hack. The 20 per cent cut only applies to loans as of June 1. So if you paid it off earlier, you're out of luck. You won't be getting any money back. If you paid it off after June 1 but before the end of the financial year, then you WILL get the equivalent of the 20 per cent cut back in your tax return (as long as you don't owe the tax office anything). If Lucy decides to wait to pay off her HECS debt, she'll expect around $1,780 off her total, taking her from an outstanding debt from $8,900 down to $7,120. The average HECS debt is around $27,600, according to the federal government. The average cut will be about $5,500. But it'll cost the budget a whopping $16 billion. At the last election, the Coalition said it wouldn't support the student loan cuts, though new Opposition Leader Sussan Ley has since said all policies are now under review. "This isn't real reform, this doesn't change the student fees that someone who starts university next year pays," former education minister Simon Birmingham said. Labor will need the support of the Coalition or the Greens to get the cuts through the Senate.
CNET
a day ago
- Business
- CNET
I'm a Student Loan Expert. Here Are the 6 Things Borrowers Should Do Now
Getty Image/Zooey Liao/CNET Are you finding it difficult to keep up with student loan news? Whether it's the end of the Saving on a Valuable Education plan, the prospect of higher student loan payments or the ramp-up of wage garnishment efforts, there are a lot of changes happening to student loan programs. I get it. As a student loan policy expert who's worked in the industry for more than 15 years, the past few years have been trying ones for borrowers. It's easy to feel like everything happening with student loans is out of your hands. One thing I know for sure is that there are ways for you to take charge of your student loans. If you're enrolled in SAVE, working toward Public Service Loan Forgiveness or a searching for a more affordable payment plan, here's what I recommend doing now. Read more: SAVE Student Loan Borrowers Likely Won't Make Payments This Year, but Should Do This One Thing Now Figure out your student loan balance Do you know how much you owe in total on your student loans? It's a question that many borrowers can't answer when I ask them. You might have an idea (or think you do). But it's important to check, especially if you think you may be behind on your payments. Many borrowers I've worked with are surprised to find they owe more than they initially borrowed when it's time to start repayment. This is because most loans, except subsidized ones, begin accruing interest from the moment they are disbursed. Outstanding interest, which has not been capitalized or added to your loan, is listed separately from the principal balance. To fully understand your loan balance, it's important to carefully review your statements. If you know who your student loan servicer is, you can log into your online account to check your balance. If you're not sure, you can find out by logging into your Federal Student Aid account and visiting the My Aid page. Read more: 5 Ways to Pay Off Your Student Loans Even Faster Prepare to restart payments If you are enrolled in the Saving on a Valuable Education Plan, your loans have been in an administrative forbearance since summer 2024 due to the plan's legal challenges. You haven't been able to make payments, and your interest rate has been set to zero. This payment hold is temporary and will likely end soon. It's a good idea to explore other income-driven repayment plans so you can plan for your new monthly payment. You can use the US Department of Education's Loan Simulator to estimate your payments and check eligibility for specific plans. Read more: My Student Loan Payment Will Jump From $0 to $488 After SAVE Ends. Yours Might Too Earning less? Recertify your income A lot has changed since the first administrative forbearance in 2020, and if you're facing financial hardship or making less money than you were five years ago, you may want to apply to have your income recertified to potentially lower your student loan payment if you're on an income-driven repayment plan. To recertify your income, visit IDR application page and select "Recertify or Change Your Income-Driven Repayment Plan." Apply for the PSLF buyback program, if you're eligible The Public Service Loan Forgiveness program offers debt cancellation for teachers, nurses and other public service employees who work in a qualifying job for 10 years and make 120 payments on their loans. If you're enrolled in SAVE and were close to reaching your 120 total payments, the recent payment pause may have delayed your forgiveness. In this case, you might benefit from the PSLF buyback program. The PSLF buyback program lets you "buy back" months where your loans sat on hold during a forbearance period -- but only if doing so brings you to 120 total payments. For example, let's say you had already made 115 qualifying payments before your loan entered the SAVE Plan forbearance. You could apply for the PSLF buyback program to buy back five of the months where your loans were in forbearance to reach the 120-payment requirement. You'll apply for the program online, and once approved, you'll have 90 days to pay off what you owe for the number of months you buy back. So, if your monthly payment was $100, you'd need to pay $500 to receive forgiveness. You'll also need to make sure you meet all other PSLF eligibility criteria, such as working for a qualifying employer and having the correct loan type. If you think you're eligible and want to confirm your payment count, you can find qualifying payment amounts in your account. Expert tip: Note: Many borrowers have been waiting to find out the status of their PSLF buyback request, but it's still worth applying if you meet the requirements. Read more: More Student Loan Forgiveness Is on the Way for PSLF Borrowers. What's Next for Debt Relief? Pay off your interest while you're in school If you're still in college, your student loans likely haven't entered repayment yet. While it's difficult to predict what repayment options will be available in the future, there are proactive steps you can take now. One recommendation is to pay off any interest that accrues while you're still in school. Even small contributions can help reduce the overall cost of your loans in the long run. If your federal student loan hasn't yet entered repayment, you won't be eligible to enroll in a repayment plan. Repayment starts six months after graduation or if your enrollment drops below half-time, unless you enroll in another program, like graduate school, before the grace period ends. Read more: What's the Future of Student Loans and FAFSA if the Department of Education Goes Under? Don't count on student loan forgiveness Many borrowers have turned to income-driven repayment plans to reduce their monthly payments and potentially qualify for student loan forgiveness. However, forgiveness is not guaranteed, especially as legal challenges continue to threaten SAVE and some of the other IDR repayment plans. Programs like PSLF and forgiveness under the Income-Based Repayment Plan carry less risk, since they would require congressional action to be altered or eliminated. That said, it's always wise to plan for full repayment of your student loans, regardless of any current potential forgiveness opportunities.
