Finance
Biden cancels another $6 billion in student loans, this time for public service workers
78,000 public service workers qualify for this new round of forgiveness. (iStock)
More student loan forgiveness is here, this time for 78,000 public service workers. Nurses, teachers, firefighters and a large array of other workers qualify for President Biden’s $6 billion in forgiveness, the White House recently announced.
Due to fixes to the Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) program, workers that never received forgiveness are now having their debts partially forgiven or canceled. Only about 7,000 public service borrowers received forgiveness prior to the Biden Administration, now that total hovers closer to 870,000, the announcement said.
This forgiveness comes on the tail of other educational fixes the Biden Administration says it has implemented.
“Today’s announcement comes on top of the significant progress we’ve achieved for students and student loan borrowers in the past few years,” the announcement stated. “This includes: providing the largest increases in Pell Grants in over a decade to help families who earn less than roughly $60,000 a year; fixing Income-Driven Repayment plans so borrowers in repayment for years get the relief they earned; and creating the most generous Income-Driven Repayment plan in history – the SAVE plan.”
If you have private student loans, this federal relief doesn’t apply to you, unfortunately. If you want to lower your monthly payments and ease the burden of student loan debt, consider refinancing. You can easily check your loan rate options via the online marketplace Credible.
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Older generations still paying student loans risk losing Social Security
A recent group of representatives wrote a letter to Congress, hoping to address the issue of seniors still paying down student loans. Currently, under the Treasury Offset Program (TOP), the government can collect funds, such as tax refunds and Social Security, to pay outstanding student loan balances.
“Under the TOP, the federal government can withhold up to 15 percent of monthly Social Security or disability benefits for defaulted student loans,” the lawmakers explained in their letter.
This program leaves millions of older Americans at risk of losing vital income. Democratic representatives urged the Biden administration to act. The letter had 30 total signatures from other Democratic leaders.
“Given alarming reports exposing the crushing impact of offsets on older Americans dependent on Social Security, we urge you to consider seeking an end to administrative offset of student loan debts for all Social Security benefits,” the letter said.
To see if you can qualify for lower interest rates, an online tool like Credible can help you compare student loan refinancing rates from multiple lenders.
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Time is running out for borrowers to apply for forgiveness
For students who want to take advantage of student loan forgiveness, the expanded timeline is coming to an end on April 30.
To earn forgiveness, the following loan types must be consolidated into a Federal Direct Loan:
- Commercially held Federal Family Education Loan (FFEL)
- Parent PLUS loans
- Perkins loans
- Health Education Assistance Loan (HEAL) Program loans
Once consolidated, borrowers with Direct Loans will receive at least three years of credit towards loan forgiveness. Some may see their loans forgiven automatically if they’ve been making payments long enough. This adjustment is intended to help borrowers who were due to receive forgiveness in the past, but never did. The adjustment is set to take place through the end of July, so borrowers should see the credit reflected by then.
If you can qualify for a student loan refinance at a lower rate than you’re currently paying, there are few downsides to refinancing. You can use Credible to compare student loan refinancing rates without affecting your credit score.
Have a finance-related question, but don’t know who to ask? Email The Credible Money Expert at [email protected] and your question might be answered by Credible in our Money Expert column.
Chinese e-commerce company Alibaba has invested heavily in its fast-growing international business as growth slows for its China-focused Taobao and Tmall business.
Nurphoto | Nurphoto | Getty Images
BEIJING — Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba‘s international arm on Wednesday launched an updated version of its artificial intelligence-powered translation tool that, it says, is better than products offered by Google, DeepL and ChatGPT.
That’s based on an assessment of Alibaba International’s new model, Marco MT, by translation benchmark framework Flores, the Chinese company said.
Alibaba’s fast-growing international unit released the AI translation product as an update to one unveiled about a year ago, which it says already has 500,000 merchant users. Sellers based in one country can use the translation tool to create product pages in the language of the target market.
The new version is based only on large language models, allowing it to draw on contextual clues such as culture or industry-specific terms, Kaifu Zhang, vice president of Alibaba International Digital Commerce Group and head of the business’ artificial intelligence initiative, told CNBC in an interview Tuesday.
“The idea is that we want this AI tool to help the bottom line of the merchants, because if the merchants are doing well, the platform will be doing well,” he said.
Large language models power artificial intelligence applications such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT, which can also translate text. The models, trained on massive amounts of data, can generate humanlike responses to user prompts.
Alibaba’s translation tool is based on its own model called Qwen. The product supports 15 languages: Arabic, Chinese, Dutch, English, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Turkish and Ukrainian.
Zhang said he expects “substantial demand” for the tool from Europe and the Americas. He also expects emerging markets to be a significant area of use.
When users of Alibaba.com — a site for suppliers to sell to businesses — are categorized by country, developing countries account for about half of the top 20 active AI tool users, Zhang said.
Chinese companies have increasingly looked abroad for growth opportunities, especially e-commerce merchants. PDD Holdings‘ Temu, fast fashion seller Shein and ByteDance’s TikTok are among the recent global market entrants. Many China-based merchants also sell on Amazon.com.
Contextual clues
Since Alibaba launched the first version of its AI translation tool last fall, the company said merchants have used it for more than 100 million product listings. Similar to other AI-based services, the basic pricing charges merchants by the amount of translated text.
Zhang declined to share how much the updated version would cost. He said it was included in some service bundles for merchants wanting simple exposure to overseas users.
His thinking is that contextual translation makes it much more likely that consumers decide to buy. He shared an example in which a colloquial Chinese description for a slipper would have turned off English-speaking consumers if it was only translated literally, without getting at the implied meaning.
“The updated translation engine is going to make Double 11 a better experience for consumers because of more authentic expression,” Zhang said, in reference to the Alibaba-led shopping festival that centers on Nov. 11 each year.
Alibaba’s international business includes platforms such as AliExpress and Lazada, which primarily targets Southeast Asia. The international unit reported sales growth of 32% to $4.03 billion in the quarter ended June from a year ago.
That’s in contrast to a 1% year-on-year drop in sales to $15.6 billion for Alibaba’s main Taobao and Tmall e-commerce business, which has focused on China.
The Taobao app is also popular with consumers in Singapore. In September, the app launched an AI-powered English version for users in the country.
Nomura analysts expect that Alibaba’s international revenue slowed slightly to 29% year-on-year growth in the quarter ended September, while operating losses narrowed, according to an Oct. 10 report. Alibaba has yet to announce when it will release quarterly earnings.
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