The College Investor Audio Show

Two Senate Democrats sent Education Secretary Linda McMahon a letter (PDF File) last week, asking her to drop plans to spend $43,278.64 on new furniture for her office. Murray serves as vice chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, and Baldwin is the top Democrat on the committee that writes the Education Department’s budget.

The furniture is for McMahon’s office in the Department’s new headquarters at 500 D Street SW, part of its move out of the Lyndon B. Johnson building.

A senior Department official told the New York Times the cost covers a new desk...

The American Federation of Teachers (AFT) and nine borrowers sued the U.S. Department of Education and Secretary Linda McMahon on October 30, 2026. Union president Randi Weingarten is the lead plaintiff, suing in her official role.

The complaint (PDF File) was filed in federal court in Washington, D.C., as Case No. 1:26-cv-03826. It asks the court to certify three nationwide classes of borrowers pursuing Public Service Loan Forgiveness.

The core issue is PSLF Buyback, which lets borrowers pay for past months in deferment or forbearance so those months count toward 120 payments. The Department’s buyback ru...

Democrats won control of both chambers of Congress in Tuesday’s midterm elections, according to the latest results. The result puts the student loan and school plans Democrats laid out before the vote back on the table. This includes the flurry of potential legislation around student loan interest rates, Pell grants, and other higher education reforms.

However, for student loan borrowers, the win changes less than it seems. President Trump still must sign or vetoes every bill, and the Repayment Assistance Plan (RAP) created by the 2025 law stays in place unless he agrees to change it.

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I've spent almost 20 years writing about student loans and how to pay for college. The one thing I hear more than anything else, from readers, from parents in our Facebook groups, from reporters, is some version of "college just costs too much." And the follow-up is always the same: "Schools need to cut costs."

I completely agree that schools need to cut costs and make higher education more affordable for students. The problem is, they really can't.

We pulled the research on every idea I've ever heard for lowering the cost of college: cut administrators...

The Department of Education updated its list of professional degree programs on October 23, 2026, to include naturopathic medicine. A Federal Student Aid electronic announcement now treats Doctor of Naturopathy (N.D.) and Doctor of Naturopathic Medicine (N.M.D.) programs under CIP code 51.3303 as professional degrees.

That brings the interim list to 30 programs, one more than the 29 the Department published after a June court stay expanded the professional degree list.

The update follows a preliminary injunction issued October 16 by Judge Michael Simon of the U.S. District Court for the District of Oregon. In a 60-page...

orrowers whose federal student loans were canceled between 2021 and 2024 saw their credit scores climb an average of 17 points, according to a new paper on student debt cancellation (PDF File) released October 26, 2026. Their homeownership rate rose 1.2 percentage points over the four years after cancellation. Most of the relief the study captures came through Public Service Loan Forgiveness and the IDR account adjustment, two programs behind much of the $183.6 billion approved under President Biden.

The study was led by Eduard Nilaj of The Century Foundation and Protect Borrowers, with Marshall Steinbaum of the University of Utah and five co-authors...

Sen. Brian Schatz (D-HI) introduced the Debt-Free College Act of 2026 (S. 5403) last month. Rep. Mark Pocan (D-WI) introduced the House version (H.R. 10455) to be a companion bill. The bills would create federal-state partnerships so students can attend public colleges in their home state without borrowing, and they target helping families cover unmet need.

“Student debt isn’t just about tuition—it’s books, housing, supplies, and food,” Pocan said, according to Maui Now’s report on the bill. The Senate bill has nine Democratic cosponsors, and the House bill has 18.

Schatz and Pocan first introduced t...

Syracuse University is turning its cost review from the classroom to the administration building. The private New York university spent the spring trimming its degree list after missing its fall enrollment target and posting its first budget deficit in years. Now the chancellor wants a hard look at the offices that run the place.

If you haven’t followed the Syracuse saga, this comes after several years of missing enrollment targets and now facing budget issues, driven both by economic headwinds and the school’s own unforced errors.

New York City’s Department of Consumer and Worker Protection (DCWP) proposed a first-in-the-nation rule on AI customer service on October 20, 2026. The rule would make it a deceptive trade practice to advertise customer service while answering only with irrelevant or wrong information. That is a familiar problem for borrowers who have dealt with servicer errors like MOHELA’s false past-due notices.

Businesses would also have to disclose when a customer is talking to an automated system, including phone menus, and give an easy way to reach a person. Violations could bring restitution and civil penalties starting at $525.

The legal fight over paying college athletes just reached the NCAA’s largest division. Three current and former Division III athletes sued the NCAA on October 23, 2026. They argue the ban on athletic scholarships at more than 400 schools is illegal price fixing under federal antitrust law.

The case, Printz v. National Collegiate Athletic Association (2:26-cv-12448), seeks damages for athletes who competed in Division III since October 21, 2022. It also asks the court to stop the NCAA from enforcing the ban.

About 210,000 athletes compete in Division III each year, according to the NCAA (PDF File). None of them ca...

Robert joined Chuck Jaffe on the Money Life Show this week and discussed the latest that was happening with the PSLF lawsuits. You can listen to the clip and catch up on the latest.

For most undergraduates, paying for college starts with a Federal Direct Loan in the student's name, with no credit check and no cosigner. The problem is the size. A dependent freshman can borrow $5,500, and even a senior tops out at $7,500, while the average sticker price at a private four-year college runs well past $40,000 a year.

When the federal loan runs out, families turn to a Parent PLUS loan or a private loan, and that is where the "can't get a student loan" problem starts. Parents get denied for adverse credit history, or get approved but hit the...

Yes. Unemployment benefits count as income on the FAFSA because the IRS treats them as taxable income, and the FAFSA starts with your adjusted gross income (AGI). Benefits received in 2025 are part of the 2025 AGI that the 2027-28 FAFSA imports directly from the IRS, so they raise the Student Aid Index the same way wages do.

The bigger issue for most families is timing. The 2027-28 FAFSA is open now and looks back to 2025 income, so a layoff in 2026 or 2027 doesn't show up on the form at all. Families in that spot can ask each college to...

More than 870 colleges now advertise free tuition for some students, but a new Brookings Institution analysis finds most of these programs repackage existing financial aid rather than add new money. In a new research brief, economist Phillip Levine concludes that the biggest benefit of free tuition may be marketing: it tells families in plain terms that they won’t pay the sticker price that only 1 in 8 students actually pays.

Levine matched a Washington Post database of free tuition policies against federal IPEDS data and net price calculator results from 200 randomly selected four-year colleges. Of the 2,994 colleges in hi...

The University of Arizona announced that it will freeze tuition and mandatory fees for every undergraduate and graduate student for fall 2027. Resident undergraduates will have gone four years without a tuition increase, and the freeze extends to nonresident undergraduates and all graduate programs for the first time.

For families watching college costs rise three times faster than inflation, a public flagship keeping its price steady gives them one less thing to plan around.

The plan still needs a final vote. The Arizona Board of Regents will review the full tuition, fees, housing and meal plan...

The University of California’s Blue and Gold Opportunity Plan covers systemwide tuition and fees for California residents with family incomes under $100,000 who qualify for financial aid.

For students entering UC in 2026-27, that’s worth $15,588 a year, made up of $14,202 in tuition and a $1,386 student services fee, according to UC’s 2026-27 fee schedule.

The plan applies at every undergraduate UC campus, including Berkeley and UCLA, and puts UC on the list of colleges offering free tuition below set income limits.

Penn State released final recommendations from its Academic Portfolio and Program Review on October 12, 2026. The university recommends closing 47 of its 403 bachelor’s and associate degree programs, joining a wave of universities cutting jobs and degrees in 2026.

The 47 programs enroll 784 students, about 1.1% of Penn State’s 68,390 undergraduates. That’s down from the preliminary list released in April, which flagged 49 programs and 906 students. Students deciding whether to stay or transfer to another college now have a final list to work from.

The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency fined Bank of America $750 million on October 13, 2026, for failures in its anti-money laundering program. It’s the largest civil money penalty in OCC history, and it hits the bank behind millions of everyday Bank of America savings and checking accounts.

The OCC penalty is one part of a larger Treasury action. FinCEN, the Treasury unit that recently ordered banks to report student aid fraud, assessed a $1.2 billion penalty that credits the OCC’s $750 million. The Office of Foreign Assets Control added an $11.6 million settlement over 475 apparent sanctions violations, according to t...

Consumer prices rose 0.6% in September on a seasonally adjusted basis, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics September CPI report released October 14, 2026. Over the past 12 months, the Consumer Price Index climbed 3.7%, up from 3.4% in August. The report is also the last input for Social Security’s 2027 COLA and the next I bond interest rate.

Gasoline was the biggest driver of the increase. The gas index rose 9.1% in September and accounted for more than half of the monthly increase. Energy prices overall are now up 20.4% from a year ago. Core inflation, which strips out food and energy, rose 0.3% fo...

The Social Security Administration announced a 3.6% cost-of-living adjustment (COLA) for 2027 on October 14. The increase follows September consumer price index data, which the Bureau of Labor Statistics released the same morning.

Nearly 72 million Social Security beneficiaries get the raise starting in January 2027. About 7.3 million SSI recipients see higher payments on December 31, 2026.

The 2027 raise is the largest since 2023, and it runs 0.8 percentage points above the 2.8% COLA for 2026. The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget (CRFB) notes it also beats the Social Security Trustees’ recent projection by 0.9 points, a sign of how fast inflation ran this year.

A growing group of states has turned the FAFSA into a high school graduation requirement. The idea, known as “universal FAFSA,” is simple: every senior either files the federal aid application or formally opts out before getting a diploma.

The label hides several variations of the policy. Some states withhold a diploma from a student who does neither, while others only require schools to track who filed.

Here’s where every state stands heading into the 2027-28 FAFSA cycle, which states walked their policies back, and what the data says about whether any of it works.

Sen. Jeff Merkley introduced the Homeownership Promise Act (PDF File) on September 23, 2026, a bill that would have the federal government match first-time homebuyers’ down payment savings at a 5-to-1 rate. A saver who puts away the $10,000 maximum would receive up to $50,000 from the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), for a combined $60,000 at closing. Sen. Ron Wyden is the lone cosponsor, according to Merkley’s announcement.

The new Homeownership Promise Accounts would function as savings accounts with a large federal grant paid out on purchase day. The concept resembles the match Foyer offers on home down paym...

Two former for-profit college students filed a proposed class action against the U.S. Department of Education on September 24, 2026, alleging the agency keeps telling credit bureaus they owe federal student loans it cancelled years ago. The case, Woods v. U.S. Department of Education (No. 1:26-cv-3335), was filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia by the Project on Predatory Student Lending (PPSL), the legal group behind the Sweet v. Cardona borrower defense settlement. The lawsuit seeks damages under the Fair Credit Reporting Act.

At issue are the Department’s group discharges that we...

The U.S. Department of Education and the U.S. Department of the Treasury launched the Defaulted Loans Support Center on September 30, 2026, a new section of StudentAid.gov where borrowers with defaulted federal student loans can apply online to rehabilitate or consolidate their loans. According to the joint press release, the portal replaces “outdated websites and burdensome mail and fax-based processes” that have governed default resolution for decades.

It is the first major borrower-facing product to come out of the ED-Treasury partnership that moved defaulted loan collections to Treasury earlier this year.

The portal lives at s...

The U.S. Department of Education announced on September 29, 2026 that it was extending the enrollment window for its temporary 1% student loan interest rate reduction by three months. Borrowers who enroll in auto pay by December 31, 2026, or who are already enrolled, keep the reduced rate through June 30, 2028. The original deadline would have closed at the end of September. The 1% discount replaced the old 0.25% auto pay discount on July 1, 2026 for eligible borrowers.

The Department says nearly 2 million borrowers have signed up for auto pay since the benefit was announced this summer. Under Secretary of Education Nicholas Kent said in...

The U.S. Senate passed the Protect College Sports Act (PDF File) by a 77-22 vote late Monday, after nearly six hours of debate and seven amendments. Drafted by Senators Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and Maria Cantwell (D-Washington), the bill would write the House v. NCAA settlement into federal law, including the revenue-sharing model that turned schools into direct payers of their athletes. This is exactly what we broke down in how NIL athletes actually make money.

For families, this is a money story as much as a sports story. Athletes can now get paid directly from schools...

A coalition of 89 advocacy groups, unions, and nonprofits is asking Congress to convene an emergency hearing on the student loan system, citing servicing errors and confusion that have followed the repayment overhaul that took effect July 1.

The letter (PDF File), was led by Protect Borrowers and Young Invincibles and signed by groups including the AFL-CIO, the American Federation of Teachers, the National Education Association, the NAACP, and the UAW.

The letter went to the chairs and ranking members of four committees: Senate HELP (Bill Cassidy and Bernie Sanders), Senate Banking (Tim Scott and Elizabeth Warren...

I’m expecting to get my student loans forgiven soon. I’m at about $148,000. I borrowed $65,000 for a social work degree back in 2001 and I’ve paid something every single month since.

A coworker mentioned you pay taxes on this and now I don’t know what to think. I make $58,000 a year. I’ve got about $14,000 in a retirement plan, $3,000 in savings, and other debt. I can’t afford to pay more taxes.

Does this even apply to me? And is there something I should be doing before the end of the year?

Federal Student Aid posted its quarterly portfolio update on September 22, 2026, and the data through June 30 shows student loan defaults still rising. The number of borrowers with defaulted loans in the federally managed portfolio grew by about 400,000 during the quarter to more than 9.3 million. Those borrowers owe $234 billion, roughly 14% of the $1.64 trillion portfolio the Department of Education manages directly.

That total now sits above the 9 million figure cited just last week when senators pressed the Education Department over its $1 billion servicing fund.

The six-month trend is ugly. When FSA released its December 2025 numbers in March, 7.7 million...

The 2027-28 FAFSA launches for everyone by October 1, 2026, and the beta version is already open. Parents working through the FAFSA step by step are reaching the signature page without ever seeing a question about savings, investments, or 529 plans. That’s on purpose.

Nothing is missing and your application is not incomplete. Federal law says the Education Department “shall not use asset information” from families who meet one of three tests. A skipped section is not one of the FAFSA mistakes that cost families aid.

The University of Notre Dame will require SAT or ACT scores from undergraduate applicants beginning with the 2027-28 admissions cycle, the university announced on September 9. The requirement covers first-year and transfer applicants seeking to enroll in Fall 2028, which puts today’s high school juniors in the first affected class. Students applying this fall for Fall 2027 enrollment stay under the current test-optional rules.

Micki Kidder, Notre Dame’s vice president for undergraduate enrollment, described a score as one input rather than a gate: “A test score, evaluated in full context of an applicant’s circumstances, is an additional measure...

The University of Vermont announced on September 9 a Regional Tuition Break that drops annual tuition to $30,240 for incoming undergraduates who are permanent residents of Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, or Rhode Island. UVM values the cut at more than $18,000 a year, or better than 35% off what non-residents normally pay at the school.

The new rate starts with the fall 2027 entering class and applies to first-time first-year students and transfers. It covers 31 majors (close to a third of UVM’s undergraduate catalog) spread across the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, the College of Education and Social Services, an...

American 15-year-olds tied for 10th out of 91 worldwide school systems in reading on the 2025 PISA exam, released September 8. In math, they tied for 23rd. Science was the bright spot for the U.S. at 13th.

U.S. reading dropped 14 points from 2022. New York Times reporting puts that near the worst American result since PISA began in 2000.

But it’s important to note that the general learning decline is worldwide. Reading across rich countries fell 28 points from 2015 to 2025, and math fell 22 points. One in five 15-year-olds now misses the basic skill level in all three subjects, up...

How much should you have in a 529 plan? The short answer: about $96 a month from birth, or roughly $37,000 by the time your child is 18, if your goal is to cover a solid chunk of in-state tuition and fees.

If you want to pay for everything at a public university, housing and food included, plan on about $630 a month gets you to $245,000 at 18. Everything in between helps, and so we break it odwn.

The real trouble comes from rising tuition costs and how much every "college savings calculator" says you need to save for your child's...

Sallie surveyed 511 U.S. scholarship applicants (both students who won at least one award and students who applied but never won) and published the results as The Scholarship Winner Playbook. The findings point to a short list of behaviors that consistently showed up among winners: starting early, applying in volume, getting essays reviewed, and reapplying after rejections. It’s a useful data set for anyone working through how to find college scholarships right now.

The headline numbers: 63% of winners started applying during high school or earlier, about 1 in 3 winners (34%) collected 3 or more awards, and winners applied to ro...

The Federal Reserve’s G.19 consumer credit release published September 8 put outstanding student loan debt at $1,858.2 billion at the end of the second quarter of 2026. That is up $55.6 billion from $1,802.6 billion a year earlier, a 3.1% increase. This is also the first time the national student loan balance has gone above $1.85 trillion.

Total consumer credit grew at a 4.2% seasonally adjusted annual rate in July to $5.19 trillion. Federally held consumer credit (Direct Loans, Perkins, and Ed-held FFEL) was $1,605.6 billion, roughly flat since March, even as millions of borrowers move onto new repayment plans.

It’s important to reme...

Reps. Bill Foster (D-IL) and Brian Fitzpatrick (R-PA) introduced the Public Service Loan Forgiveness Inclusion Act of 2026, which would update what counts as a qualifying payment under Public Service Loan Forgiveness in two ways: it would let payments under graduated, extended, and the new tiered standard plans count during a borrower’s first 60 months, and it would treat months spent in administrative forbearance as qualifying payments for borrowers working in public service.

It was referred to the House Committee on Education and Workforce the same day it was introduced, with nine cosponsors.

This first provision is...

Gov. Gavin Newsom signed Senate Bill 960 and Assembly Bill 2694 on September 18, 2026, rewriting the rules for bachelor’s degrees at California community colleges. Starting January 1, 2028, each district’s allowance of new bachelor’s programs will range from 2 to 12, and the number depends on how many of its students finish or transfer.

The two measures, by Sen. Christopher Cabaldon (D-Napa) and Assemblymember David Alvarez (D-San Diego), are legally joined: SB 960 states it takes effect only if AB 2694 is also enacted. Newsom’s office listed both as signed in its September 18 legislative update.

They replace the framework set by AB 92...

Several of the most selective colleges have adopted generous financial aid policies that provide free tuition to low- and moderate-income students. Depending on the college, the income threshold for free tuition ranges from $100,000 to $250,000.

MIT was the first to offer free tuition for families with income under $200,000 starting with the 2025-2026 academic year. Harvard matched the offer within months. Since then, other colleges have announced similar policies for the 2026-2027 academic year, including Rice at $200,000 and the University of Chicago at $250,000.

Here’s a ranked list of the top offers, why colleges are doing this, an...

A bipartisan House bill would add farm and ranch work to the list of jobs eligible for Public Service Loan Forgiveness. H.R. 9974, the Young Farmer Success Act, was introduced by Rep. Glenn Thompson (R-PA) alongside Reps. Joe Courtney (D-CT), Monica De La Cruz (R-TX), and Nikki Budzinski (D-IL), and referred to the House Committee on Education and Workforce.

The text of the bill amends Section 455(m)(3)(B) of the Higher Education Act to treat full-time work as an “employee or manager of a qualified farm or ranch” as a public service job. A qualified operation is one...