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Parent PLUS Caps At $20,000 A Year, Leaving Cosigners Fewer Options In Year 4

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Parent PLUS Caps At $20,000 A Year, Leaving Cosigners Fewer Options In Year 4


As of July 1, 2026, new Parent PLUS borrowers are capped at $20,000 per dependent student per year and $65,000 for that student’s entire undergraduate career. Before this change, Parent PLUS went all the way up to the school’s full certified cost of attendance.

For families at expensive schools, that program was the entire plan. It closed whatever the aid package didn’t, and it did so without much scrutiny. The problem you notice – $20,000 per year doesn’t translate to $65,000 if your child attends college for 4 or even 5 years… that’s a problem.

In partnership with Student Choice, we’re going to break down what borrowing for college looks like, and why you may want to consider an education line of credit.

Get started with Student Choice →

What The Cap Actually Leaves You With

Start with the math, because it’s stark once you write it down.

A dependent undergraduate can borrow $5,500 in their own name as a freshman, $6,500 as a sophomore, and $7,500 as a junior or senior — figures that haven’t moved in over a decade, with a $31,000 lifetime aggregate. 

Add the new Parent PLUS ceiling of $20,000 a year and $65,000 total.

And the aggregate matters more than the annual number, a family that leans on the full $20,000 in each of the first three years has $5,000 of Parent PLUS left for senior year.

How Do You Cover This Gap?

For many families, private student loans are the key alternative to covering this gap. Parent PLUS Loan rates are over 9%, plus they have a 4.228% origination fee. That is expensive. 

If you can get a private student loan for less than that, it can make a lot of sense to just take out a private student loan or an education line of credit.

You need to think through the entire way to pay for college. You might think the Parent PLUS Loan is smart upfront, but look at the gap it leaves you in the end, and that could be a challenge. That’s why we think that families should always shop Parent PLUS Loans against private loans to see if they can get a better deal.

See which credit unions you can join through Student Choice →

You don’t do it once. You do it every year.

Most private student loans are one-year loans. They’re certified for the academic year, disbursed by term, and finished. The next August, your student needs another one.

Get The Approval Once Instead of Four Times

This is the specific reason an education line of credit fits.

You apply one time and are approved for a limit that can cover the degree, then draw against it as each term’s bill comes due. Interest accrues only on what you’ve actually drawn.

For a cosigner, the meaningful change is the underwriting timeline. You are not filing a fresh, fully documented application every August and hoping your financial picture still clears. The approval is done. Draws remain subject to annual review and to your student meeting the school’s Satisfactory Academic Progress standard, but that is a lighter process than starting over four separate times.

Student Choice runs the largest network, with 223 credit unions offering education lines of credit. Each credit union sets its own underwriting, rates, and terms, so compare several rather than taking the first approval. The credit union products carry no origination fees (worth weighing against the 4.228% that comes off the top of every Parent PLUS disbursement) no prepayment penalties, no draw fees, and offer a 0.25% rate reduction for autopay.

Compare credit union education lines of credit →

Cosigner Release, and How To Actually Get It

Multi-year approval doesn’t mean you’re on the loan forever. Credit unions in the network offer cosigner release, which means you can request removal from the loan after a set number of on-time payments (typically 36-48 depending which credit union you select). 

Typically, full principal-and-interest payments are required, and the student must independently qualifying on their own credit and income.

What to do before you sign anything this month

Pull your own credit. Know your score and your DTI before an underwriter does. Under the old system you never had to care. Now you do.

Model all four years. Add up what you’d cosign across the degree, check it against your DTI and your retirement timeline, and see whether year four is plausible. If it isn’t, the plan changes now rather than in 2029.

Take the federal loan in your student’s name first. They carry income-driven repayment and loan forgiveness protections, and they require no cosigner.

Once you know what you’re going to need to pay, you can make a plan to ensure it happens!

Find your credit union and get approved for all four years →

Editor: Colin Graves

The post Parent PLUS Caps At $20,000 A Year, Leaving Cosigners Fewer Options In Year 4 appeared first on The College Investor.

Walmart, Target and Home Depot set to give Wall Street a peek at the American consumer, one week after stocks’ all-time high

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Walmart, Target and Home Depot set to give Wall Street a peek at the American consumer, one week after stocks’ all-time high



Futures are mixed ahead of a big week for major retailers as new questions emerge about the state of the U.S. consumer, a major engine powering the American economy.

The S&P 500 edged 0.1% higher, while Dow Jones Industrial Average futures slipped 0.2%. Nasdaq futures gained 0.5%.

U.S. stocks hit an all-time high last week despite some recent downbeat data about jobs and, most notably last week, retail spending.

Americans unexpectedly pulled back on retail spending in July by the biggest amount in more than a year, according to the Commerce Department data released Friday

Walmart and Target both post second quarter earnings this week, with Target surging under new CEO Michael Fiddelke, a 20-year company veteran who took over in February. Home improvement companies Home Depot and Lowe’s also report quarterly earnings this week.

The entire sector is wrestling with stubbornly high inflation and customers that are laser focused on prices.

The weak jobs and retail data has diminished the odds of any interest rate hike from the Federal Reserve. That’s good for markets because it lowers the cost of credit, but it may also suggest slowing growth at a time when inflation is elevated.

The Fed has no good tool to fix a stagnating economy and high inflation at the same time, making so-called “stagflation” a worst-case scenario.

The Fed is set to report minutes from its July meeting on Wednesday, which will provide more details about its thinking on interest rates.

Oil prices rose Monday with Iran saying it is working with Oman on a plan to manage the transit of ships through the Strait of Hormuz.

Global oil supplies have been squeezed because about 20% of the world’s crude is transited through the strait on a typical day. Iran effectively shut down the strait after it was attacked by the U.S. and Israel in late February.

Brent crude, the international standard, rose 1.1% to $89.50 per barrel, while U.S.

In European trading, Germany’s DAX dipped 0.9% at 26,416.57, while the CAC 40 in Paris lost 0.2% to 8,622.43.

Britain’s FTSE 100 gained 0.1% to 10,751.53.

Tokyo’s Nikkei 225 index gained 0.7% to 69,220.25 after the Japanese government reported the economy grew slightly faster than forecast in the April-June quarter. In quarterly terms, the economy grew 0.3% in the second quarter of the year.

The U.S. dollar fell to 159.17 Japanese yen from 159.32 yen. The euro rose to $1.1600 from $1.1588.

Canadian inflation ticks up to 3% amid higher gas prices

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Canadian inflation ticks up to 3% amid higher gas prices




Canada’s inflation rate edged up to 3% as the Middle East conflict continued to push up gasoline prices, while core measures of price growth remained subdued. 

T-Mobile Offering Up to $260 Discount for Existing Customers (YMMV)

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T-Mobile Offering Up to $260 Discount for Existing Customers (YMMV)


T-Mobile Retention Offers

🔄️ Update: More people in our DDG Facebook Group report getting these discounts today.

T-Mobile is being super generous in recent days, offering up to $260 discount to some customers. These retention offers are going out to those looking to cancel their phone service. You can simply jump on a chat or call to see what they offer you.

The discounts may vary based on your plan, number of lines, whether you have paid off your devices etc. If you have a bunch of free lines for examples, they might be happy to see you leave, and won’t offer any discounts.

Some of the offers reported include:

Let me know in the comments if you try this out and get a similar offer!

Elon Musk Just Uttered 3 Massively Bullish Words for Micron, Sandisk, and SK Hynix

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Elon Musk Just Uttered 3 Massively Bullish Words for Micron, Sandisk, and SK Hynix


It has been a historic period for memory and storage stocks. Once relegated to a bucket of lowly valued “commodity” stocks, the agentic AI revolution has spurred an absolutely massive increase in memory and storage demand.

Not only has demand increased, but the technology has also evolved from an interchangeable commodity to a strategic enabler for AI systems. The agentic era has therefore spurred massive stock price increases for memory and storage giants Micron (MU +2.30%), SK Hynix (SKHY +0.40%), and Sandisk (SNDK +7.40%).

However, those huge gains gave way to a big pullback in July because of profit-taking, fears of more efficient models from China, short-seller skepticism, and the “blow-up” of the AI-focused hedge fund Situational Awareness. Even after a bounce back in August, these stocks remain 15% to 30% below their June highs.

Is the recent pullback a harbinger of more pain and a “bubble bursting,” or an opportunity to buy the dip? Last week, Elon Musk wrote a three-word sentence on his social media that strongly points to the latter.

Today’s Change

(2.30%) $21.83

Current Price

$971.66

“Few realize this”

Last week on X, a private technology executive noted, “Memory, not compute, is the rate limiter of the Agentic Era,” to which Elon Musk replied, “Few realize this.”

In the first wave of generative artificial intelligence, the environment was dominated by simple questions or prompts directed at the AI system, which would then find the answer. That relatively simple AI application places a lot of onus on the GPU and its massively parallel-processing capabilities.

However, in the agentic AI era, in which AI is tasked with planning and executing tasks independently, the game has changed. Now the focus has pivoted to planning, thinking, data retrieval, testing, and retesting agentic outputs. That has exponentially expanded CPU-heavy “planning” tasks.

Not only that, but each “task” also requires vast amounts of storage and memory. In a recent blog post from Micron, the company wrote that every single agent instance requires:

  • State and KV/context staging — keeping track of where it is in its reasoning loop.
  • Tool outputs and queues — buffering results from API calls and code execution.
  • Container/sandbox memory — isolated runtime environments for safe execution.
  • Vector/index data — for retrieval-augmented generation and semantic search.
  • OS and runtime overhead — the base cost of keeping thousands of environments alive.

Each one of these requirements entails memory to support it. Micron also notes that much of the memory for these workloads isn’t traditional “commodity” DRAM, but specialized, high-capacity, high-bandwidth DRAM.

These smarter memory architectures require more capital equipment to produce; for instance, memory makers have noted that high-bandwidth memory requires at least three times as much capital equipment per bit to produce as traditional server DRAM.

That means the supply of advanced memory required for agentic AI is becoming harder to meet, just as demand is exploding, which is why DRAM prices have boomed.

Not to be outdone, NAND flash, which stores information even when a system is turned off, though it is slower than DRAM, is also growing fast. That’s because massive KV-cache memory chains for long-context agents — basically, the prior context AI agents must “remember” to produce more tokens — require a lot of data to be offloaded to NAND-based SSDs. Both Micron and SK Hynix produce NAND along with DRAM, while Sandisk is a NAND “pure play.”

Elon Musk smiling.

Image source: The White House.

Inference has catapulted memory to the forefront

Training even the best frontier models requires a lot of memory, but that amount is ultimately capped at the amount needed to fill a GPU. In other words, GPUs can only read so much memory at once, so training a model requires a lot of GPUs, along with a requisite amount of memory.

However, as we enter an era in which more and more consumers and enterprises use agentic AI as a daily habit, the demand for memory appears almost endless. If an AI agent operates over a long period of time, it will have to constantly read and write the KV cache ad infinitum.

That’s why researchers at Goldman Sachs just released awe-inspiring estimates of future AI token usage. By 2030, the investment bank estimates that agentic AI will consume roughly 120 quadrillion tokens per month: 24 times the token usage of early 2026.

Thus, it’s no wonder that Elon Musk highlights memory as the biggest silicon-based constraint for AI moving forward. Even as more supply comes online in 2028, it appears the demand will be there to absorb it. Thus, the current memory up-cycle may last longer than many investors realize.

What is Liquidation In Crypto trading? #innercircle #cryptocurrencymarket

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What is Liquidation In Crypto trading? #innercircle #cryptocurrencymarket

source

Citizens reiterates Allogene stock rating on trial progress

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Citizens reiterates Allogene stock rating on trial progress

Conflicts of Interest in Continuation Funds

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The CV transaction price is the outcome that matters most for all the CV participants. It is the litmus test that determines the fairness of the CV transaction. But how do we judge the fairness of the transaction price?

Incoming investors in the CV face the risk of adverse selection. Are they paying too much to buy equity in overpriced assets? (If so, that might explain why the assets cannot be sold at a price acceptable to the GP in a traditional exit.) Selling LPs, in contrast, face the risk of inadequate consideration for their interests. Are they leaving money on the table by selling the assets for less than they are worth? These questions are particularly difficult to answer because price discovery in CV transactions is neither objective nor fully independent.

The contrast with public markets is instructive. Public markets offer price discovery that is continuous, observable, and objective. Private funds, in contrast, typically hold their portfolio of assets for years before disposing of them. In the meantime, the assets are illiquid. There is no trading to offer an objective and observable market price. The market price comes into view only in an eventual traditional exit, which transfers both ownership and control to a third-party buyer (or to the investors in an IPO).

Unlike a traditional exit, however, the CV allows the GP to retain control (and some equity) even after the transaction. Furthermore, the GP plays a central role in forming the CV and establishing the transaction price. To be sure, the process typically involves a sophisticated third-party lead investor who negotiates the price and other terms with the GP. In addition, the GP may obtain a fairness or valuation opinion from an independent provider. Nonetheless, the GP directs the process: It solicits bids, selects the winning bid, and negotiates with the winning bidder (i.e., the lead investor) to settle on a price and agree to the other terms of the CV. This arrangement makes the price discovery process significantly less than fully independent.

Nor is the process objective. In the absence of an observable and independently established market price, the most theoretically sound way to establish the intrinsic price of an asset is to forecast its future sale price and discount that back to present value. That approach, however, introduces subjectivity and reliance on models to estimate future value and risk. No matter how skilled and astute the GP is and no matter how scrupulous its due diligence is, its assumptions remain subjective and its predictions remain subject to error. Intrinsic value is based on the asset’s future prospects and eventual sale price. But those projections cannot be tested or verified at the time of the CV transaction; only time will tell.

As a result of these challenges, we cannot simply rely on the transaction price to judge the fairness of a CV transaction. Instead, we must also rely on the fairness of the process. Did the GP vigorously and effectively solicit bids? Did it seek to drive a hard but fair bargain in its negotiations with the lead investor, faithfully discharging its duties of care and loyalty?

Although the price discovery process can never be completely independent or objective, the GP can strive to attain those objectives as closely as possible. We judge the fairness of the CV by the extent to which the process succeeds in approximating those goals.

A simple analogy drawn from the philosophy of procedural justice may be helpful. Imagine that 10 individuals want to divide a cake equally. The outcome will be fair if the cake is indeed divided into 10 equal pieces and distributed to each of the individuals. We have a clear and measurable standard by which to judge the fairness of the outcome.

But suppose instead that we are engaged in a different activity whose outcome cannot be measured directly. We have no independent criterion or clear standard by which to judge the outcome. We can, however, design a clear and fair process to be followed. Then, we can judge the fairness of our actions by how well we follow the process, whatever the outcome. Stated another way, procedure substitutes for output as a means to judge the fairness of the activity. While not a perfect analogy, it bears relevance to the challenge of judging the fairness of a CV transaction.

UWM sued for allegedly misleading investors on hedge strategy

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UWM sued for allegedly misleading investors on hedge strategy



United Wholesale Mortgage investors are accusing the company and its leaders of securities fraud over their public statements, or lack of, regarding the lender’s ill-fated hedge. 

Processing Content

Shareholder Doug Bond filed a class action lawsuit against UWM Holdings Thursday in a Michigan federal court, seeking to cover investors who bought the company’s securities between March 9 and Aug. 5. It is one of two lawsuits announced by investor plaintiff firms this week, as the fallout of UWM’s failed acquisition of Two Harbors begins to heat up. 

The new lawsuit focuses on the time between a March UWM press release projecting annual revenue and the Aug. 5 second quarter earnings report, in which the lender disclosed its $603.2 million interest rate derivatives loss. UWM also then announced a $2.05 billion cash infusion from Oaktree Capital Management, while its stock price tumbled in response to under $2 per share.

The complaint focuses on Chairman, President and CEO Mat Ishbia’s comments during an Aug. 6 earnings call, a Zoom meeting in which he answered pre-submitted questions from analysts. Ishbia addressed the Two Harbors ordeal and the hedge loss repeatedly, stating that UWM doesn’t traditionally hedge its mortgage servicing rights but did so to “protect” against the risk in acquiring Two and its large MSR book. 

“We were over-hedged, if you think of it that way, protecting against the Two Harbors transaction,” he said on the call. 

Bond’s lawsuit argues UWM failed to tell investors that it over-hedged itself in anticipation of the Two Harbors deal. The lender, in a first-quarter earnings filing in May, quietly noted that it occasionally hedges to mitigate MSR risk, and that it held $27.5 billion in notional “other interest rate derivatives.” 

The complaint, which names Ishbia and Chief Financial Officer Rami Hasani as defendants, accuses the firm of misleading investors with positive statements, causing significant shareholder losses. 

The filing also claims UWM isn’t shielded by the statutory safe harbor provided for forward-looking statements, as executives knew the financial disclosures were misleading. 

UWM’s stock was trading at $4.04 per share on March 10. It fell to approximately $1.20 per share following last week’s earnings, and was trading at $1.62 mid-afternoon Friday. 

A spokesperson for UWM didn’t respond to a request for comment on the lawsuit. 

UWM continues its fracas with Two Harbors

While Two Harbors is on the verge of finally being acquired by retail giant CrossCountry Mortgage, it is fending off accusations from its spurned suitor. 

UWM sued Two Harbors in a Maryland federal court this week, seeking over $500 million in damages over the real estate investment trust’s alleged breach of contract during their negotiations. The wholesale leader specifically accuses rival executives of sabotaging the deal first agreed to last December. 

Two Harbors fired back this week, denying the accusations. The rival firm pointed to UWM’s own fading stock, and raised similar questions over its financial disclosures. 

“The loss highlights the dire condition of UWMC’s balance sheet, liquidity and also casts doubt on its risk management and other governance practices,” Two Harbors said.



[FL, In Branch Only] First Federal Bank $200 Checking Bonus

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[FL, In Branch Only] First Federal Bank $200 Checking Bonus


Offer at a glance

  • Maximum bonus amount: $200
  • Availability: FL, In Branch only
  • Direct deposit required: Yes, $1,000+
  • Additional requirements: None
  • Hard/soft pull: Unknown
  • ChexSystems: Unknown
  • Credit card funding: Unknown
  • Monthly fees: $9, avoidable 
  • Early account termination fee:
  • Household limit: None listed 
  • Expiration date: September 30, 2026

The Offer

Direct link to offer

  • First Federal Bank is offering a checking bonus $200:
    • Receive qualifying direct deposit(s) totaling at least $1,000 in a single calendar month, within 60 days of opening your account

The Fine Print

  • $200 Checking Bonus is available to new First Federal Bank customers who open a new personal Enhanced Checking Account through a representative at a branch or through a representative-assisted channel during the promotional period ending September 30, 2026.
  • Accounts opened through the bank’s self-service online account opening process are not eligible.
  • To qualify, customer must receive qualifying direct deposit(s) totaling at least $1,000 in a single calendar month within 60 days of account opening.
  • Qualifying direct deposits are ACH deposits of payroll, pension, Social Security, or government benefits from an employer, pension administrator, or government agency. Person-to-person transfers, mobile payment transfers, remote deposits, ATM deposits, and transfers from other bank accounts do not qualify.
  • Account must remain open, active, and in good standing for at least 90 days from account opening.
  • Bonus will be credited within 30 days after all eligibility requirements are met.
  • Limit one bonus per customer tax ID.
  • Bonus may be subject to tax reporting.
  • Offer may be subject to change at any time.
  • All bank account bonuses are treated as income/interest and as such you have to pay taxes on them

Avoiding Fees

Monthly Fees

The $9 monthly account cycle service charge will be waived for any statement cycle in which 20 or more debit card purchase transactions post to the account. This promotional fee waiver is available for new First Federal Bank customers who open a new personal Enhanced Checking account through a representative at a branch or through a representative-assisted channel during the promotional period ending September 30, 2026. Accounts opened through the bank’s self-service online account opening process are not eligible.

Early Account Termination Fee

I wasn’t able to find a fee schedule.

Our Verdict

There is also a $400 business checking that can be done. 

Hat tip to ShawntheShawn

Useful posts regarding bank bonuses:

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