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Biden cancels student loans with one week left to his term

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More student debt relief is underway as Biden prepares to exit office. (iStock)

As President Joe Biden’s term draws to a close, he has granted federal student loan relief to an additional 150,000 borrowers.

These 150,000 borrowers include almost 85,000 who attended schools that cheated and defrauded their students, 61,000 borrowers with total and permanent disabilities, and 6,100 public service workers. The debt forgiveness now brings the number of students whose student debt has been canceled during his administration to more than 5 million, according to a White House release.

The latest wave of debt relief includes 6,100 borrowers who have had $465 million of debt forgiven through the Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) program. This is a testament to the potential of such programs to alleviate the burden of student debt.

“Identifying 5 million people for student loan forgiveness means the federal government is finally keeping its promises,” U.S. Under Secretary of Education James Kvaal said. “People who cannot afford their student loans because they are in public service, have disabilities, were cheated by their college, or who have completed decades of payments are now getting the relief they were promised. These permanent reforms will continue for more and more borrowers every year.”

If you want to pay down your private student loan debt, a refinance could help you lower your interest rate and monthly payment. To see if this is the right option, contact Credible to speak to a student loan expert and answer your questions.

INFLATION SEES THE LOWEST ANNUAL RISE SINCE 2021

New student loan forgiveness approvals

The Supreme Court previously blocked the Biden administration’s plans for broader student loan forgiveness. In 2023, the court stopped the administration from forgiving $400 billion in debt affecting more than 40 million borrowers. 

In August, the Supreme Court shut down another administration proposal to lower monthly payments and speed up loan forgiveness. After the Supreme Court struck down Biden’s student loan forgiveness plan, Biden introduced SAVE. The White House said 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 yearly.  

The Biden administration withdrew plans for an alternative student debt forgiveness plan in December.  Despite losing in the Supreme Court, the administration has forgiven some $183.6 billion in student debt thanks to fixes implemented to process PSLF applications and approve discharges. The total number of borrowers approved for PSLF is now 1,069,000 and $78.46 billion compared to 7,000 borrowers who had received PSLF at the start of the Biden-Harris administration, according to the Department of Education.

Moreover, the administration approved $56.5 billion in debt relief for more than 1.4 million borrowers through Income-Driven Repayment, including the Saving on a Valuable Education SAVE plan.  Some borrowers also have access to an extra $900 in Pell Grant funds to pay for school. Additional debt forgiven includes the student debt of borrowers whose schools cheated, saw their institutions precipitously close, or are covered by related court settlements. 

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. 

FHFA ANNOUNCES HIGHER MORTGAGE LOAN LIMITS FOR 2025

Debt forgiveness could be blocked forever

Republican Representative Glenn Grothman (R-WI) introduced a bill during the last Congress that effectively blocked any future mass student loan cancelation plans. The Protecting Taxpayers From Student Loan Bailouts Act prohibits the Secretary of Education from issuing regulations or executive actions that increase the costs of the federal student loan program.  

The bill was ultimately incorporated into the College Cost Reduction Act, which did not reach a vote on the House floor. 

“Congress might still consider taking action to block future administrations from forgiving debts,” Preston Cooper, American Enterprise Institute senior fellow, said in a blog post.

Cooper said that Republicans may not want to risk the chance that the next Democratic administration will successfully pursue a loan cancelation strategy that is less vulnerable to legal challenges.

Borrowers with private student loans could find relief by refinancing to lower their monthly payments. An online tool like Credible can help you compare student loan refinancing rates before you apply to help find the best deal for you.

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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.

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How buy now, payer later apps could be crushing your credit

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Small, everyday purchases like a meal from DoorDash are now able to be financed through eat now, pay later options — a practice that some experts deem “predatory.”

“You’ve got to have enough sense to not follow the urge to finance a taco, okay? You have got to be an adult,” career coach Ken Coleman told “The Big Money Show,” Wednesday. 

“This is predatory, and it’s going to get a lot of people in deep trouble.”

RISKS OF BUY NOW, PAY LATER: ‘TICKET TO OVERSPENDING,’ EXPERT SAYS

klarna, doordash

DoorDash and Klarna are now partnering up to extend buy now, pay later options to consumers. (Reuters, Getty / Getty Images)

Financial wellness experts are continuously sounding the alarm to cash-strapped consumers, warning them of the devastating impact this financial strategy could have on their credit score as some lenders will begin reporting those loans to credit agencies.

Consumers may risk getting hit with late fees and interest rates, similar to credit cards. 

“So your sandwich might show up on your FICO score, especially if you pay for it late,” FOX Business’ Jackie DeAngelis explained.

EXPERTS WARN HIDDEN RISKS OF BUY NOW, PAY LATER

Major players like Affirm, Afterpay, and Klarna have risen to prominence at a time when Americans continue to grapple with persisting inflation, high interest rates and student loan payments, which resumed in October 2023 after a pause due to the COVID-19 pandemic. 

“The Big Money Show” co-host Taylor Riggs offered a different perspective, suggesting that company CEOs have a “duty” to attract as many customers as they want. 

“Unfortunately for me, this always comes down to financial literacy — which I know is so much in your heart about training people to save now by later,” she told Coleman, who regularly offers financial advice to callers on “The Ramsey Show.”

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Coleman continued to come to the defense of financially “desperate” consumers, arguing that companies are targeting “immature” customers. 

“I’m for American businesses being able to do whatever they want to do under the law. That’s fine. But let’s still call it what it is: it’s predatory, and they know who their customers are,” Coleman concluded, “And I’m telling you, they’re talking about weak-minded, immature, desperate people.”

FOX Business’ Daniella Genovese contributed to this report.

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DeepSeek AI excitement spills over to Hong Kong’s IPO market

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The Exchange Square Complex, which houses the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, on Feb. 26, 2025.

Bloomberg | Bloomberg | Getty Images

BEIJING — Chinese companies are jumping at a window of opportunity to go public in Hong Kong as global investors start to return to the region, following the news of DeepSeek’s artificial intelligence breakthrough in late January.

It’s a level of excitement that has not been felt for more than three years, despite the overhang of U.S. trade tensions. Initial public offerings are a lucrative way for early investors in startups to exit and reap a return.

“Everyone is working so perfectly together. IPO candidates, the investor and the regulators,” said George Chan, global IPO leader at EY. “All these three parties are working so perfectly at this moment to actually cultivate a healthy Hong Kong IPO market.”

“The U.S. long-term fund has returned. It shows investors are getting more confident [about] China,” he said, adding that post-IPO performance has also been encouraging.

Chinese bubble tea giant Mixue went public on March 3 in a highly oversubscribed Hong Kong listing. And in a sign of more to come, Chinese battery giant Contemporary Amperex Technology (CATL) filed in February for what could be Hong Kong’s largest IPO since 2021, when short-video company Kuaishou listed.

Still think it is a little risky to bet on specific companies or industries in China: GAO Capital

News of China-based DeepSeek’s claims to rival OpenAI’s ChatGPT in reasoning capabilities at a lower cost — despite U.S. restrictions on Chinese access to advanced chips for training AI models — hit global tech stocks in late January, while spurring a rally in China. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index surged to three-year highs.

Chinese President Xi Jinping also held a rare meeting with tech entrepreneurs in February, and Beijing has signaled greater support for the private sector, after taking a more restrictive stance in recent years.

Six initial public offerings in Hong Kong raised more than 1 billion Hong Kong dollars ($130 million) in the first quarter — a jump from just one listing of that size in the year-ago period — according to KPMG.

In all, the consultancy said, Hong Kong saw 15 IPOs in all of the first quarter which raised 17.7 billion HKD — the best start to a year since 2021.

There’s still a long way to go before recovering to that level. Hong Kong saw 32 IPOs in the first quarter of 2021 that raised a whopping 132.7 billion HKD, according to KPMG.

The Hong Kong stock exchange has adjusted its listing rules in the interim, including ones that support companies already listed in mainland China to offer shares in Hong Kong.

In addition to CATL, other companies listed in mainland China — Hengrui Pharmaceuticals, Mabwell, Haitian Flavoring and Food, Fortior Tech and Sanhua Intelligent Controls — are “actively seeking Hong Kong listings,” said Tiger Brokers, an underwriter of many Chinese companies’ IPOs in the U.S. and Hong Kong.

“Chinese regulators are encouraging companies to list in Hong Kong to broaden financing channels and support the outbound merger and acquisition needs of Chinese enterprises,” the firm said.

Still not out of the woods

Back in the summer of 2021, the fallout over Chinese ride-hailing company Didi’s IPO in the U.S. prompted both countries’ regulators to scrutinize what was then a wave of Chinese companies listing in New York.

The major issues have since been resolved and Beijing has clarified rules for Chinese companies wanting to list outside the mainland. But the Trump administration indicated in its “America First Investment Policy” that it could increase scrutiny on U.S. capital flowing to China, on top of heightened tariffs.

The U.S. and China have yet to indicate when their two leaders might meet in an attempt to forge a deal. A surge of interest in AI and tech are also not yet enough to speed up a recovery in China’s economy.

“At this point in time, all we can see is the good indicators,” EY’s Chan said. But “there could be one single incident happening which could pretty much reverse the trend.”

“Things tend to have a pattern,” he said. “If things can keep on for three months, four months, it will likely continue for the rest of the year.”

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Treasury Secretary Bessent says market woes are more about tech stock sell-off than Trump’s tariffs

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Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent speaks to reporters outside the West Wing after doing a television interview on the North Lawn of the White House on March 13, 2025 in Washington, DC. 

Andrew Harnik | Getty Images

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said Wednesday the sell-off in the stock market is due more to a sharp pullback in the biggest technology stocks instead of the protectionist policies coming from the Trump administration.

“I’m trying to be Secretary of Treasury, not a market commentator. What I would point out is that especially the Nasdaq peaked on DeepSeek day so that’s a Mag 7 problem, not a MAGA problem,” Bessent said on Bloomberg TV Wednesday evening.

Bessent was referring to Chinese AI startup DeepSeek, whose new language models sparked a rout in U.S. technology stocks in late January. The emergence of DeepSeek’s highly competitive and potentially much cheaper models stoked doubts about the billions that the big U.S. tech companies are spending on AI.

The so-called Magnificent 7 stocks — Apple, Amazon, Tesla, Alphabet, Microsoft, Meta and Nvidia — started selling off drastically, pulling the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite into correction territory. The tech-heavy benchmark is down about 13% from its record high reached on December 16.

However, the secretary downplayed the impact from President Donald Trump’s steep tariffs, which caught many investors off guard and fueled fears of a re-acceleration in inflation, slower economic growth and even a recession. Many investors have blamed the tariff rollout for driving the S&P 500 briefly into correction territory from its record reached in late February. Wall Street defines a correction as a drop of 10% from a recent high.

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S&P 500, YTD

Trump signed an aggressive “reciprocal tariff” policy at the White House Wednesday evening, slapping duties of at least 10% and even higher for some countries. The actions sparked a huge sell-off in the stock market overnight, with the S&P 500 futures declining nearly 4% and the blue-chip Dow Jones Industrial Average shedding 1,100 points. The losses will likely but the S&P 500 back into correction territory in Thursday’s session.

“It’s going to be fine if we put the best economic conditions in place,” Bessent said in a separate interview on Fox Wednesday evening. “If you go back and look, the stock market actually peaked on the [DeepSeek] Chinese AI announcement. So a lot of what we have seen has been just an idiosyncratic tech sell-off.”

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