Finance
Republican states file suit to stop Biden’s SAVE student loan repayment plan
Student loan relief is on the chopping block again as Republican-led states seek to halt income-driven repayment plans. (iStock)
The political tug of war over student loan forgiveness registered a new chapter as 11 Republican-led states filed suit against President Joe Biden and the U.S. Department of Education to stop the SAVE Plan.
The Biden Administration introduced the Saving on a Valuable Education (SAVE) plan after the Supreme Court struck down Biden’s student loan forgiveness plan. The White House said in a statement that the SAVE plan could lower borrowers’ monthly payments to zero dollars, reduce monthly costs in half and save those who make payments at least $1,000 a year. Additionally, borrowers with an original balance of $12,000 or less will receive forgiveness of any remaining balance after making 10 years of payments.
The Kansas-led lawsuit seeks to halt the SAVE plan immediately, arguing that the U.S. Department of Education has no authority to alter student loan repayment plans. This would essentially cancel more than $156 billion in student loan debt. The attorneys general from Alabama, Alaska, Idaho, Iowa, Louisiana, Montana, Nebraska, South Carolina, Texas and Utah joined the suit.
“Once again, the Biden administration has decided to steal from the poor and give to the rich,” Kansas Attorney General Kris Kobach said in a statement. “He is forcing people who did not go to college, or who worked their way through college, to pay for the loans of those who ran up exorbitant student debt. This coalition of Republican attorneys general will stand in the gap and stop Biden.”
If you hold private student loans, you won’t be enrolled in a federal income-driven repayment plan, but you could refinance your loans to a lower rate. Visit Credible to compare options from different lenders without affecting your credit score.
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Congress must authorize debt cancelation
The lawsuit also argues that the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that Biden’s original forgiveness program violated federal law and that only Congress can authorize the forgiveness of student loans, which requires spending taxpayer money.
However, a spokesperson from the Department of Education told Bloomberg News that Congress gave the department the authority to define the terms of income-driven repayment plans.
Nearly $138 billion has been forgiven for almost 3.9 million borrowers through more than two dozen executive actions. Student loan forgiveness has reached millions even as the Supreme Court blocked Biden’s original debt forgiveness plan last June. There are now 7.5 million borrowers enrolled in the SAVE Plan, and 4.3 million borrowers have a $0 monthly payment. Beginning in July, undergraduate loan payments will be halved, capping a borrower’s loan payment at 5% of their discretionary income.
“The Biden-Harris Administration won’t stop fighting to provide support and relief to borrowers across the country—no matter how many times Republican elected officials try to stop us,” the spokesperson told Bloomberg News.
Private student loan borrowers can’t benefit from federal loan relief. But you could lower your monthly payments by refinancing to a lower interest rate. Visit Credible to speak with an expert and get your questions answered.
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SAVE plan could help many more borrowers
Roughly three out of four borrowers who make $75,000 or less annually and would benefit from the SAVE plan are not currently enrolled in the plan, according to a recent Student Debt Crisis Center (SDCC) survey. Moreover, 38% of these borrowers are at risk of defaulting on their student loan payments six months from now and could be missing an opportunity to find debt relief in existing programs.
According to the SDCC survey, more than half of borrowers who contacted their student loan servicers with questions about resuming payments were left with unanswered questions.
Moreover, a quarter of borrowers don’t trust the information they get from their servicer, and 75% said the information they got was inaccurate or incomplete. Every student loan borrower is assigned a loan servicer to help them navigate repayment options, including income-driven repayment (IDR), which can make payments more affordable.
“These survey results are a reflection of what borrowers have experienced these past six months since repayment restarted,” SDCC President and Founder Natalia Abrams said. “We have come so far in advocating for necessary relief to millions of borrowers, and seeing the Biden Administration act is great.”
“However, communication of these vital resources is crucial so borrowers know help is available for them right now,” Abrams continued. “If borrowers do not know the available resources, they will miss relief that can lower their monthly payments, cancel their debt entirely, and so much more.”
If you’re having trouble making payments on your private student loans, you won’t benefit from federal relief. You could consider refinancing your loans for a lower interest rate to lower your monthly payments. Visit Credible to get your personalized rate in minutes.
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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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