What to Do Before Your Student Loan Payment Jumps to $900

Every single team out there is putting in the work right now together before the games that

actually count. Nobody is waiting until September to get ready and neither should we.

“That's why as the official bank sponsor of the NFL U.S. Bank's Business Banking is the teammate”

I want every business owner in this community to have going into Q4. Real dedicated experts who actually learn your business, understand your goals, and help build a real game plan around where you're going. The businesses that win Q4 are the ones that prepared in August. Let's be those businesses head to usbank.com and let's build something strong together. That's the power of us member FDIC copyright 2026 U.S. Bank.

I can't spend all day scrolling Instagram. I have a business, okay, more than one, to run.

But here's the thing. Running a business means being on social media. Not my personal page.

I'm talking brand pages, a whole network of them, which is why I turn to up work to find the perfect social media manager to take this off my plate. Upwork helps grow your business by

“giving you fast access to specialized talent across 125 plus categories, so you can fill”

skill gaps, launch projects faster, and scale support up or down without committing to full-time headcount. With business plus, you can access the top 1% of talent on upwork and with AI powered short listing, you'll get matched to the right freelancer in under six hours, no unless searching required. Visit upwork.com right now and post your job for free. That is upwork.com to connect with the top talent ready to help your business grow. That's UPW-O-R-K.com Upwork.com.

I recently needed a professional gift that said, "Thank you, but not in a boring way." I turn to the plant store, the juicy leaf. They sell these super-impressive succulent arrangements, but what I love is that I can check out using Square. I can tap to pay in-person or, and this is my favorite, I can order the gift online and they will drop it off along with care instructions.

“Square is the platform behind the scenes of so many businesses you already love. Whether someone”

selling smoothies, cutting hair, fixing bikes, or running a boutique, Square gives them one connected system to take payments, manage inventory, run payroll, send invoices, and track it all from one place. If you're starting a business or running one that deserves better tools, Square helps you sell, manage and grow without slowing down. Right now you can get up to $200 off Square Hardware at Square.com/go/mn. That's SQU-A-R-E.com/g-o/m-n-n. Run your business smarter with Square.

Get started today. I'm Nicole Lathen. The only financial expert you don't need a dictionary to understand. It's time for somebody around. Ugh, open your student loan account. I know, I'll wait. If you have been living in safe plan limbo for the last two years, we are out of purgatory. Because the letter is coming, maybe it's actually already in your inbox, and it starts a clock that if you ignore it,

could take your payment from $0,900 over night. Here's everything that we know that's going on. Save the Biden era plan that gave millions of people tiny or $0 payments is dead. So RIP, Rest in Peace. A federal appeals court got rid of it back in March, and the one big,

beautiful bill act mixed it again for good measure. About 7 million people were parked in

safe forbearance. That waiting is now over. Starting July 1st, servicers began mailing 90 day notices going out in tranches all the way into next year. So if you haven't gotten yours, I'm sorry. It doesn't mean that it missed you. It is coming. Once it actually lands, you've got 90 days to pick a new plan. And if you don't pick a plan, your servicer picks a plan for you and drops you into the standard plan that does not care

about your income. It takes your balance, splits it over a fixed term, and then sends you a bill. In other words, it is not going to pick the best plan for you. This is maybe the best example of a problem that keeps coming up again and again in personal finance land. Doing nothing feels safe in the moment, but it is often the single most expensive move you can make in the long run. More than half of the people on save had a $0 payment. Get auto enrolled in a standard plan on an

$80,000 balance, and all of a sudden you are staring down about 900 bucks. Okay, one last doom and gloom point, I promise, and then I'm moving on to tell you what you can do about it. While your loans were paused, they were not frozen. Interest had been quietly piling up since August of 2025. So the balance you remember then, it grew. Log back in and take a look at the real number

It's called rap, the repayment assistance plan, and if you take out any new federal loan going forward, it's basically the only income driven option you've got. Your payment is a slice of your adjusted gross income. 1% if you are barely earning up to 10% once you clear 100 grand, minus 50

“bucks before every dependent I should say. Honestly, rap is a mixed bag. The bad news is no more”

zero dollar payments, and forgiveness now takes a full 30 years. But here is the upside. If your payment does not cover the interest that month, the government eats the difference. Your balance does not grow. And if you're not chipping away at least $50 off your principle, they kick in the rest.

So you're always moving forward. For a lot of people, that is the first time that the math

has been on their side. One big warning, the rollout has been a kuku crazy circus. Rap went live and student aid.gov basically fell over. The picture this fall when everybody panics and goes into the same website all at once. My biggest piece of advice here is get ahead of the stampede today if you can. To do that log into student aid.gov and run your numbers through the loan simulator. It's going to show you what rap, IBR, and standard each cost.

“While you're there, you'll also want to decide if you want to give the department consent to”

pull your income from the IRS. It does speed everything up and auto recertifies you so your payment doesn't reset by surprise. But if you're not into sharing data, I obviously got that too. It is totally your call. And if you're going for loan forgiveness, do not get dumped into the new tiered standard plan. Payments, they're don't count toward forgiveness. Rap counts, IBR counts. So I would pick one of those. Then get on autopay. It is basically free money.

The department just quadrupled the autopay discount from a quarter percent to a full percentage point. On a $30,000 balance, that's a few hundred bucks. You have to enroll by September 30th to lock it in through 2028. If you're already on autopay, login and confirm it applied. One thing to look out for if three payments bounce. Unfortunately, the discount is gone for good. Here's something from the fine print that I read

so that you don't have to. If your job offers a 401k match, and if you've been skipping it because all of your dollars go to loans, stop. There's a new rule in the Secure 2.0 Act that lets your employer treat your student loan payments like 401k contributions and matches them into your retirement.

“Yes, this is a real thing and it's really important to pay attention to. You pay your loans”

like you already do, and your company drops free money into your 401k anyway. So if you thought you had to choose between paying down your debt and building your retirement, you definitely don't. Email HR if you have an HR department and ask if they offer student loan matches. If they do in a rule ASAP, otherwise you're leaving thousands of dollars a year on the table. If you are already in default, though, this is an important thing to remember.

The elections were frozen for years, but the government is turning wage garnishment back on this

fall, time to write at these save deadlines. More than 7 million borrowers are into fold.

Garnishment means they can take up to 15% of your paycheck automatically. No court, no judge, and grab your tax refund on top of that. If that's you, please don't wait. I know you have a lot going on and this is probably really stressful, but this really is one of those time is of the essence of things. If you're in default, you have two exits. Rehabilitation, which actually wipes your default off your credit report, or two consolidation, which is faster, but does leave a financial

scar. Rehab is the smarter, long game, and I'm not just saying that because this is money we have, but heads up, the chaos has scammers out in full force. Nobody legit charges a fee to unlock forgiveness. Every real option is free at studentaid.gov. If somebody wants your credit card to save you, hang up. For today's tip, you can take straight to the bank. If you're married and you're the one carrying student debt, look hard at filing your taxes married filing separately. Rehab calculates your

payment off your adjusted gross income, and if you file separately, only your income counts. Your spouse's salary vanishes from the equation. For a high earner married to someone with little or no student debt, that can quietly slash your monthly payment. Here's the catch, though. Filing separately can cost you certain tax breaks, so it is not a no-brainer. It's a run, your number is kind of thing. Put your alone savings next to the tax savings you would give up,

and see which number is bigger. Most people never even think to look. But the ones who do,

sometimes find thousands of dollars hiding right there in a single track box. (upbeat music)