Can your shares have a side gig? How Betterment’s securities lending works
With more and more of our lives being lived through a screen, it’s easy to forget the investments you own exist in the real world. They’re brick-and-mortar businesses, for example, or interest-bearing bonds.
Not only can you buy and sell these assets on the open market, you can temporarily loan them out to banks, hedge funds, and others in exchange for income. This is what’s known as securities lending, or “sec” lending for short, and it’s one of the newer ways we’re helping your money work harder. So let’s break down the mechanics of the program and help you decide whether opting in makes sense.
The upside of lending out your shares
We offer sec lending through Apex, the same trusted partner who helps us handle thousands of trades each day. When you enroll in the program, the shares in your taxable, IRA, and HSA accounts are eligible to be lent out in exchange for income from borrowers. You, Betterment, and Apex split the income, with more details on the arrangement available in our sec lending disclosure.
The exact dollar amount of lending income depends on a few factors, like how many shares you have, the demand for those particular shares, and how long they stay on loan. There’s no guarantee your shares will find a borrower on any given day, and income tends to ebb and flow with the market.
Because of these variables, it can help to think of sec lending as a low-effort side gig for your securities. And similar to tax-loss harvesting, it can help to have it turned on and ready to take advantage of short-term swings in the market. All automatically, with no work needed on your part.
Stay in control, while we stay on top of taxes
For many, the decision to opt in comes down to the potential downsides, so we’ve worked hard to minimize them.
For starters, you can opt in and opt out of the program at any time, at no cost. When you’re opted in, you stay fully invested while your shares are out on loan. This means any potential gains in value are still yours, and you can sell the shares at any time.
When you lend a single stock, one tradeoff is that you temporarily lose its proxy voting rights while out on loan. These are the rights to vote on the policies, board members, and other decisions of that particular company. But it’s important to note that when it comes to exchange traded funds (ETFs), the proxy voting rights of their underlying companies have already been delegated to the ETF’s manager.
Taxes have historically been one of the bigger potential drawbacks of sec lending. That’s because the qualified or exempt dividends your investments may pay out while on loan are replaced with cash payments, which could be taxed at a higher rate.
That’s where Betterment’s tax-aware approach comes into play, helping limit your potential tax impact in a couple ways:
- We prioritize loans that still generate net-positive lending income after accounting for additional estimated taxes, which we estimate using the information you provide in your financial profile.
- We handle the remaining estimated tax impact (to the extent it’s not covered by your lending income) by issuing you an annual credit.
The end result is a lending program designed to let you loan with confidence.
The safety net for your shares
The banks, hedge funds, and other financial institutions ultimately borrowing your shares are typically supporting strategies like short selling (betting a share falls in price), hedging (buying an insurance policy of sorts for other investments they own), or matching buyers with sellers as a service.
When players like these borrow securities, it’s common practice for them to put up at least 100% cash collateral to mitigate the risk of loss and reassure lenders like you, and that’s exactly the case with Betterment’s sec lending program. Apex deposits the collateral with a custodian, which is then administered by a trustee.
Any shares you loan aren’t covered by SIPC insurance, an industry backstop that guards against broker failure, which is why that collateral matters. In the rare event that Apex can’t return your shares, the cash collateral is there to make you whole.
Is sec lending right for you?
Securities lending likely won’t result in a windfall, but if you already hold eligible stocks and ETFs, it can be a low-effort way to squeeze more value out of them while staying invested. You stay in control, can opt in and out at will, and can sell loaned shares at any time. And our tax-aware approach helps guard against taxes reducing your profits. To opt in, first update your financial profile, then head to Portfolio Controls in Settings (Settings > Accounts on desktop).
Report: Nvidia is preparing to oust CEO Jensen Huang after admission to affair with alleged Chinese spy
Nvidia’s board of directors is preparing to remove Chief Executive Jensen Huang, an ouster that would follow his admission of having an extramarital affair with a woman U.S. intelligence officials deemed to be a Chinese spy. The decision by the chipmaking giant, reported by the Wall Street Journal, would deal a swift end to Huang’s 33-year reign as CEO and promises to send shockwaves throughout the technology industry and upend America’s race in artificial intelligence.
The Journal reported that Nvidia’s board could meet as soon as Wednesday to determine his fate. On Wednesday, the New York Times reported that Huang, 63 years old, had also had an extramarital relationship with Kimberly Powell, the company’s vice president of health care. Powell could not immediately be reached for comment.
In after-hours trading, Nvidia’s shares were down more than 7%. According to LinkedIn, Powell has been with Nvidia for nearly two decades and previously spent 10 years in AI business development. Nvidia describes her as formerly leading the company’s higher education and research business, alongside Nvidia AI labs.
Huang’s long-term future with the company is not immediately clear. On Sunday, Huang acknowledged being unfaithful to his wife, and Nvidia announced an investigation into the reports that he had been targeted by a foreign intelligence effort. At the time, the board said it had “no reason to believe that either national security or NVIDIA secrets were compromised,” but that its inquiry would examine “all available information.”
Huang co-founded Nvidia in 1993 and has been integral to the company’s success, particularly its magnificent run in recent years. For fiscal 2026, which ended in January, the company reported revenue of $215.9 billion, up 65% over the prior year. Growth accelerated in the first half of fiscal 2027, with revenue of $96 billion, up 85% year over year. Nvidia previously guided third-quarter fiscal 2027 revenue to $108 billion, plus or minus 2%, and chief financial officer Colette Kress said the company expected 70% revenue growth in fiscal 2028.
Huang reigns supreme over the company. Since its founding, he has created a unique, flat structure in which he sits at the center of most decisions, with about 60 direct reports. Nvidia’s board operates without a chair, and the company has not set out a clear succession plan. It also does not have a chief operating officer. Huang is known to text and call small clients himself.
Nvidia’s succession challenge would not be whether its engineers can keep building chips without Huang, analysts say. It is whether anyone, or any leadership team, can inherit his authority to decide what gets built, secure the industry’s commitment to it, and keep customers confident in the next bet.
The factors behind Huang’s now-expected removal “hasten a transition the company is not prepared for,” Gil Luria, an analyst with D.A. Davidson & Co., told Fortune.
Nvidia’s board decision would be a forced hand. “There are rules about that; there are laws about that,” Jay Goldberg of Seaport Research Partners told Fortune, speaking about the untenability of Huang as CEO if there were internal policy violations. Nvidia won’t “go away. They’re sold out. It’s all contracted into next year, but it loses a lot of its luster. The chances of making a misstep are higher.”
If Huang is ousted, the most immediate question is who will succeed him, and what sort of new plan the company will put in place to fill the vacuum of power.
“Rarely has a board faced this much pressure. This is the board’s moment to shine or fade,” Michael Useem, a professor of management at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, told Fortune. “If the board had been doing its job, it would already have a slate of possible successors: people identified as likely successors.”
Business and law experts have said Nvidia’s chief financial officer, Colette Kress, could be an option for interim CEO. Another option would be to have one of the company’s directors, such as lead independent director Stephen Neal, who is chairman emeritus and senior counsel at law firm Cooley LLP, take over as interim CEO if Huang is removed. Huang’s children and son-in-law also work at the company.
Huang’s ouster would create a massive hole for the AI industry. Huang has been central to the industry’s rapid growth. His success in creating world-leading graphics processing units, the chips that power AI by handling model training and regular user queries, has been instrumental in ushering in the AI boom and in the U.S.’s leading position.
Few executives in Silicon Valley and beyond exert the level of power and influence over one company and industry. Huang’s institutional knowledge and deep industry connections have been among the reasons tech analysts and other experts have said it would be impossible to replace him. Another reason has been President Trump, who has become a close friend of Huang and stood by the executive since Sunday’s revelations, saying Huang is an “amazing guy” and “honorable man.”
Nearly 500,000 made no Home Buyers’ Plan repayment for 2025
More than 45% of participants who had a repayment due and filed a tax return fell short of the annual minimum, CRA figures show.
David Ellison’s Skydance replaces DC Studios bosses James Gunn and Peter Safran with Marvel veteran
Skydance has removed James Gunn and Peter Safran as co-chairmen and co-CEOs of DC Studios, ending a four-year run that began with a hit Superman and was expected to survive the company’s takeover of Warner Bros. Discovery.
Their replacement is Jeremy Latcham, a former Marvel Studios executive who helped launch the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Skydance Motion Picture Group announced the change on Nov. 9. Latcham starts Dec. 1 as president and chief creative officer of DC Studios, overseeing its film, television, and animation slate.
The move puts Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman, and the rest of the DC Comics roster under new creative control barely a month after Skydance closed its deal. It also resets a franchise strategy that Warner Bros. has now restarted twice in 13 years.
A reprieve that lasted a month
Paramount completed its takeover of Warner Bros. Discovery on Oct. 6 and renamed the combined company Skydance. Early reports said Gunn and Safran would keep their jobs, even as Warner Bros. film chiefs Michael De Luca and Pamela Abdy were expected to give way to Paramount’s Dana Goldberg and Josh Greenstein.
That assurance did not hold. According to The Hollywood Reporter, Skydance chairman and CEO David Ellison and co-CEO Ynon Kreiz visited Gunn and Safran’s office on Nov. 6 to deliver the news in person.
Gunn and Safran will still produce DC projects, and they are finishing post-production on Man of Tomorrow, the Superman sequel slated for July 2027. Latcham reports to Goldberg and Greenstein, now co-chairs of Skydance Motion Picture Group.
“I’ve had the privilege to help bring some of the most celebrated superhero stories to life on the big screen, and I’m excited and honored for the opportunity to now lead DC Studios into its next era,” Latcham said in a statement.
A $618 million start, then a flop
Gunn and Safran took over DC Studios on Nov. 1, 2022, hired to reboot the DC characters as a single connected universe. The deal came months after Discovery merged with WarnerMedia to form Warner Bros. Discovery.
Gunn arrived as a proven voice in the genre. He wrote and directed all three Guardians of the Galaxy films for Marvel, then made his DC debut with The Suicide Squad in 2021. Safran produced that film, other DC adaptations of the 2010s, and the Conjuring films for Warner Bros.’ New Line Cinema.
Their first release, Gunn’s Superman, opened to $217 million globally in July 2025 and finished with $618.7 million worldwide. It introduced David Corenswet as the Man of Steel and set up a wider universe of familiar DC characters.
The second did not soar. Supergirl cost a reported $170 million and became one of DC Studios’ worst opening-weekend flops this summer, grossing $126 million worldwide amid weak reviews.
The third paid off. Clayface, an R-rated body-horror film made for a reported $44 million, opened at No. 1 and had grossed $109 million worldwide as of Nov. 8. On television, the pair delivered a second season of Peacemaker, the animated Creature Commandos, and HBO’s Lanterns, a hit when it debuted in August.
Marvel’s playbook, 18 years later
Latcham was part of the founding team at Marvel Studios under Kevin Feige. He worked on Iron Man, The Avengers, and Tom Holland’s Spider-Man films, and he collaborated with Gunn on Guardians of the Galaxy.
He left Marvel in 2017 to found Latcham Pictures, whose films include Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves and Bad Times at the El Royale. DC is his return to superheroes.
The task he inherits has defeated Warner Bros. before. The studio’s first attempt at a Marvel-style connected universe, the DC Extended Universe, began with Zack Snyder’s Man of Steel in 2013 and ended with Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom in 2023, after Gunn and Safran had already been hired to start over.
In between came a decade of uneven results, from Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice and Wonder Woman to The Flash and Black Adam. Unlike Marvel’s tightly linked films, the DCEU fractured. Suicide Squad and The Suicide Squad are entirely separate movies released five years apart.
Troubled productions and turnover behind the camera made it worse. Fans campaigned for years after the 2017 theatrical Justice League until Warner Bros. released Snyder’s original vision as Zack Snyder’s Justice League in 2021.
Warner Bros. also kept DC stories outside the main universe. The CW’s Arrowverse, including Arrow, The Flash, Supergirl, and Black Lightning, built its own connected TV world. On the big screen, 2019’s Joker and 2022’s The Batman stood apart from the DCEU.
The split continued under Gunn and Safran. Joker: Folie à Deux arrived in 2024, while Matt Reeves’ Batman films and HBO’s The Penguin remain in their own world. John Cena’s Peacemaker, meanwhile, carried over from the old universe into the new one.
What Latcham inherits
The near-term slate is set. Man of Tomorrow remains on the calendar, and Reeves’ The Batman: Part II is still in production, with Steven Soderbergh recently brought in to shoot the remaining scenes. The series The People v. Gorilla Grodd is also in the works.
Beyond that, little is settled. It is not yet clear whether Corenswet’s Superman continues after Man of Tomorrow, whether Lanterns gets a second season, or whether Latcham starts over from scratch and hands fans another round of whiplash. Whether the universe Gunn and Safran built survives is a Riddler-worthy mystery.
Latcham helped build Hollywood’s most successful franchise once. Nearly two decades after Iron Man, he will find out whether that origin story can be repeated, or whether the superhero universe no longer comes with a reliable playbook.
Mygiftcardsplus: 10% off Delta eGiftcards
The Offer
Direct Link to offer
- Mygiftcardsplus is offering 10% cashback in Swagbucks on Delta e-gift cards. Limit $2,500. Valid November 10, 2026 only.
- Tomorrow’s deal is for H&M.
- There will be one deal per day through November 18th.
Also available:
- 20% back on Chuck E Cheese, Jiffy Lube, Jamba Juice, IHOP, Regal, Dave & Buster’s.
Our Verdict
Mygiftcardsplus is nice in that you can choose your own denomination. Another positive is that you get credit card rewards on the entire purchase, before the discount, since the rewards come as a credit back to your Swagbucks account. More details can be found in our review of Mygiftcardplus here.
If you’re new to Swagbucks then please read our review. You can also get a bonus of up to $13 by using a referral link.
The Unexpected! Bitcoin Live Analysis & Trading!
Send the word ACCESS to me on Telegram to join my community:
💎Bitbase:
💎Toobit:
💎Blofin:
💎Kraken:
💎DEX:
Trading Tools:
Follow me on X:
Access & affiliate disclosure:
To join this group you must open and fund an account with our partner exchange via my link.
The group is education‑only and does not provide signals or copy‑trading.
If you sign up or trade through these links, I may receive a commission. This does not change your fees and is not a recommendation to trade.
Contact me via Telegram @mindpillar for any business queries.
Disclaimer
The content shared on this channel is for educational and entertainment purposes only. Nothing in this video or description should be interpreted as financial advice, investment advice, or a recommendation to take any specific action in the cryptocurrency market. All information represents personal opinions and experiences only.
Trading and investing in cryptocurrencies — especially using futures, leverage, or margin — involves significant risk and may not be suitable for all participants. Results shown, including profits or losses, are individual, hypothetical, or historical examples and do not guarantee or predict future performance. Any strategies, trade examples, or market commentary are provided to explain how markets work, not as guidance to replicate.
Always conduct your own research and consider speaking with a licensed financial professional before making any financial decisions. Do not trade with funds you cannot afford to lose.
Some content includes referral or affiliate links to cryptocurrency platforms. Using these links is completely optional and does not influence the opinions or analysis provided. If you sign up or trade through these links, I may receive a commission or other benefit; this does not change your fees and is not a recommendation to trade.
By viewing this content, you acknowledge that you understand the risks involved and agree that Dewald are not responsible for any financial losses or decisions you choose to make.
This channel does not promote gambling, get‑rich‑quick schemes, or guaranteed profit systems — all trading examples are strictly educational.
#bitcoin #crypto #cryptocurrency #tradingstrategy #tradingSend the word ACCESS to me on Telegram to join my community:
source
These 5 Gold Mining Stocks Give You a Different Way to Own Gold
Gold has long been a go-to asset when uncertainty rises, and Newmont (NEM -0.41%), Agnico Eagle Mines (AEM -1.12%), Barrick Mining (B -0.79%), Kinross Gold (KGC +0.30%), and Wheaton Precious Metals (WPM +0.30%) are five gold mining stocks that give you a different way to own gold.
Following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022, the G7, European Union, and other partner nations froze Russian sovereign foreign reserves. Since then, central banks have been adding gold rapidly. Central banks were previously averaging about 500 tons of gold purchased per year.
In recent years, those purchases have doubled as some of the world’s central banks de-dollarize and seek diversification away from U.S. Treasuries and other sovereign debt.
Image source: Getty Images.
U.S. deficits continue to expand, year-over-year inflation, as measured by the Consumer Price Index (CPI), remains above 3%, and geopolitical tensions remain elevated. Right now, gold is priced near $4,100 an ounce, and JPMorgan Chase researchers project it could reach $6,300 by next year. Here’s why these five gold stocks could be smart additions to your portfolio today.
Newmont is the world’s largest gold producer
Newmont is a behemoth in the gold mining world and the largest company by production, reserves, and market capitalization. The company operates across North America, South America, Australia, and West Africa, and its scale and diversified portfolio help ensure that no single mine failure or regional crisis significantly impacts the business.
NEM Newmont
$119.47-$0.49 (-0.41%)
NYSE · As of 12:15 PM ET 11/11/26
Newmont is a massive company, and its inclusion in the S&P 500 index makes it a popular gold-mining stock among mutual funds, wealth managers, and macro hedge funds. The company is also a major copper producer. For investors seeking broad diversification, Newmont’s massive scale makes it a popular choice, though upside could be more limited than more nimble or leveraged operators.
Agnico Eagle is a low-cost operator with high-quality assets
Agnico Eagle Mines isn’t as spread out across the globe as Newmont. Instead, it focuses heavily on the Abitibi gold belt in Canada where roughly 86% of its total gold production takes place. By clustering operations in Canada, Agnico can share processing, infrastructure, power grids, and its labor force, which helps keep its all-in sustaining costs (AISC) relatively low.
In addition, Canada has some of the highest-grade Archean greenstone gold systems in the world, meaning Agnico produces more ounces per ton of rock. Because Agnico focuses primarily on Tier-1 assets, the stock often trades at a slight premium to peers like Newmont and Barrick, as it doesn’t face the same geopolitical risks.
Barrick trades at a lower valuation and has a growing copper business
Barrick Mining is another major gold miner that rebranded itself from Barrick Gold to better reflect its expansion into copper. The company owns high-grade, low-cost gold systems worldwide, along with major copper assets in Zambia, Saudi Arabia, and South America, as well as a large open-pit copper-and-gold development in Pakistan.
B Barrick Mining
$39.38-$0.32 (-0.79%)
NYSE · As of 12:20 PM ET 11/11/26
Barrick tends to trade at a lower multiple than Agnico and Newmont. Its lower multiple largely reflects its heightened exposure to less stable geographic regions. While Agnico operates mainly in Canada, roughly half of Barrick’s operations and growth pipeline is in developing or volatile nations that face political and regional risks.
The company trades at a lower valuation and is a solid choice for value investors who believe the stock can rerate higher. It also provides exposure to both gold and copper, giving investors upside exposure to growing demand for these metals.
Kinross provides high-beta exposure to gold prices
Kinross Gold operates across North America, South America, and Africa, and offers investors more volatile exposure, or higher beta, to rising gold prices. That’s because the company has historically operated with a narrower profit margin per ounce, magnifying moves in gold and making Kinross a higher-leverage play to capitalize on higher gold prices but also riskier if gold prices pull back.
Wheaton benefits from rising prices without bearing inflation risk
Wheaton Precious Metals is a unique play on precious metals. That’s because the company doesn’t own or operate mines itself. Instead, it provides capital to mining companies to help fund mine construction. In return, the company has the right to purchase a percentage of the mine’s future gold, silver, or cobalt at a predetermined cash price.
WPM Wheaton Precious Metals
$137.03+$0.41 (+0.30%)
NYSE · As of 12:20 PM ET 11/11/26
Known as a streaming or royalty business model, Wheaton doesn’t bear the costs of owning a mine, such as labor, equipment, or fuel. As a result, the company benefits from 100% of the upside when precious metal prices rise. This makes Wheaton Precious Metals a solid gold stock for investors seeking exposure to rising gold prices while mitigating the inflation effects gold miners face.
Where to invest $1,000 right now
When our analyst team has a stock tip, it can pay to listen. After all, Stock Advisor’s total average return is 852%* — a market-crushing outperformance compared to 208% for the S&P 500.
They just revealed what they believe are the 10 best stocks for investors to buy right now, available when you join Stock Advisor.
See the stocks ›
*Stock Advisor returns as of November 11, 2026.
Student Loan Delinquency Hits 10.9% In New York Fed Q3 2026 Report
Key Points
- 10.9% of the $1.656 trillion in student loan balances on credit reports was 90 or more days late or in default at the end of September 2026, up from 10.6% in the second quarter and 9.4% a year earlier.
- The rate of balances newly falling 90 days behind dropped to 7.72% from 14.26% a year earlier, because the 2025 reporting surge has aged out of the Fed’s four-quarter measure.
- Borrowers 50 and older now fall into serious delinquency faster than any younger age group, and many hold Parent PLUS loans that lost access to income-driven repayment if they weren’t consolidated by June 30, 2026.
Student loan delinquency kept climbing in the third quarter of 2026, according to the New York Fed’s Quarterly Report on Household Debt and Credit. The share of student loan balances 90 or more days past due or in default rose to 10.9%, up from 10.6% in the second quarter.
Student loans now make up about 8.7% of the $19.1 trillion in total household debt. You can see our full breakdown of student loan debt statistics.
Total student loan debt increased $5 billion in the quarter to $1.656 trillion. Over the past year, student loan balances grew just $3 billion, the smallest increase of any debt category in the report.
The Fed also reported that the rate of balances newly moving into serious delinquency fell to 7.72%, down from 14.26% in the third quarter of 2025. That continues the slowdown we reported in the New York Fed’s second-quarter student loan data. This simply means the pace of borrowers falling behind has slowed by almost half from a year ago. However, more people are still behind overall.
Would you like to save this?
Why It Matters
Using the Fed’s figures, The College Investor calculates that about $180 billion in student loan balances was 90 or more days late or in default at the end of September. A year earlier, the same math put that figure near $155 billion. That’s an increase of about $25 billion in 12 months, even as new delinquencies slowed.
Each late payment also negatively impacts borrower credit reports, and more than 2.2 million newly delinquent borrowers lost over 100 credit points when reporting resumed in 2025.
Serious delinquency is the last stop before default. Federal student loans default after 270 days without a payment, and the U.S. Treasury now handles collections on defaulted federal student loans. Borrowers in default face aggressive collections when it resumes, including wage garnishments, tax offsets, and more.
You can see what this looks like and how this compares to pre-pandemic levels in the table below.
| Measure | Q4 2019 (Pre-Pause) | Q3 2025 | Q3 2026 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Total Student Loan Balance | $1.51 trillion | $1.653 trillion | $1.656 trillion |
| Share Of Balances 90+ Days Late | 11.1% | 9.4% | 10.9% |
| Balances Newly 90+ Days Late | 9.21% | 14.26% | 7.72% |
| Dollars 90+ Days Late | About $168 billion | About $155 billion | About $180 billion |
Why Is Delinquency Rising If Fewer Borrowers Are Falling Behind?
It’s confusing to see that the rate of borrowers falling behind has fallen so much while the total amount of borrowers delinquent has increased.
The 10.9% figure is a snapshot of every student loan balance that is seriously late at the end of the quarter. The 7.72% figure counts balances that newly crossed 90 days late, and the Fed calculates it as a four-quarter moving sum. Both come from the Fed’s Equifax credit panel, the same source behind earlier New York Fed data on 3.6 million new defaults.
That four-quarter tracking window explains the drop. Servicers resumed reporting missed federal student loan payments to credit bureaus in early 2025, which set off a record wave of borrowers behind on payments. That surge has now aged out of the Fed’s window, cutting the flow rate nearly in half.
Today’s 7.72% is also below the 9.21% rate the Fed reported for the fourth quarter of 2019.
The rising 10.9% rate tells the other half of the story. Balances keep entering serious delinquency faster than borrowers pay them off, catch up or get them forgiven. Federal Student Aid data points the same direction, with defaults up about 400,000 borrowers in the quarter ending June 30 to more than 9.3 million. We won’t see the next batch of federal student aid data until December.
How Does Today Compare To Before The Pandemic Pause?
The share of student loan balances 90 or more days late is back almost exactly where it stood before the Covid-19 pandemic pause.
The Fed reported 11.1% of balances were 90+ days late in the fourth quarter of 2019, the last full quarter before federal student loan payments and collections stopped in March 2020. It reported 10.8% in the first quarter of 2020, so today’s 10.9% sits between those two readings.
Balances have grown since then, from $1.51 trillion at the end of 2019 to $1.656 trillion today. The same math puts seriously delinquent student debt at about $168 billion in late 2019, compared with about $180 billion now. Delinquency has returned to its pre-pandemic level, and that level left roughly one in nine dollars of student debt seriously behind.
Which Borrowers Are Falling Behind Fastest?
Borrowers 50 and older now move into serious delinquency at a higher rate than any other age group, according to the Fed’s age breakdown. Borrowers 18 to 29 have the lowest rate. That carries extra risk for older borrowers, since the government can garnish part of Social Security benefits to collect defaulted federal student loans.
How do borrowers over 50 have so much student loan debt? Well, it’s generally a combination of paying for their children’s college through Parent Plus Loans and/or going back to graduate school later in life. You’ll notice that these are two areas that the new One Big Beautiful Build Act has put new loan limits on moving forward.
A Government Accountability Office report found that about 2.19 million of the 3.1 million Parent PLUS borrowers were 50 or older in fiscal 2015 (the last year with public age data). That’s about 70%.
Federal Student Aid counted 3.6 million Parent PLUS borrowers owing about $115 billion as of March 31, 2026, so roughly 2.5 million would be 50 or older if the 2015 age mix still holds.
What Changed For Parent PLUS Borrowers On July 1, 2026?
Parent PLUS borrowers also lost their income-driven repayment options on July 1, 2026. Only parents whose Direct Consolidation Loan was disbursed by June 30, 2026 can still use Income-Contingent Repayment, then move to Income-Based Repayment before ICR ends on July 1, 2028. Parent PLUS loans can never use the new Repayment Assistance Plan at all.
Parents who missed the deadline are left with fixed payments. Un-consolidated Parent PLUS loans keep the Standard, Graduated and Extended plans, while a consolidation completed after July 1, 2026 is limited to the Tiered-Standard plan. These parents also lose the pathway to Public Service Loan Forgiveness since they don’t have access to an eligible repayment plan. Taking out any new Parent PLUS loan after July 1 shuts off income-driven repayment for all of a parent’s Parent PLUS debt, even for parents who consolidated in time. We’re seeing this happen now to parents who are still borrowing for children in college.
Could More Parent PLUS Borrowers Qualify For Bankruptcy Discharge?
The College Investor believes Parent PLUS borrowers who missed the deadline may now have a better shot at discharging their student loans in bankruptcy than ever before. Bankruptcy still requires proof of undue hardship through a separate lawsuit called an adversary proceeding, and a judge makes the final decision. However, now with the lack of income-driven repayment options, the ability to prove undue hardship has likely increased.
The Justice Department’s 2022 guidance for government attorneys (PDF File) sets out when the government will agree that a borrower meets that bar. Anyone weighing this route should talk with a bankruptcy attorney first.
That guidance measures ability to pay against the Standard plan payment, not an income-driven payment. It also says that not enrolling in an income-driven repayment plan doesn’t, by itself, show a lack of good faith. A Parent PLUS borrower locked out of income-driven repayment has no lower, income-based payment the government can point to as proof the debt is affordable.
The guidance also presumes hardship will last when the borrower is 65 or older or the student loans have been in repayment for at least 10 years.
Why Did Student Loan Balances Barely Grow?
Fall disbursements usually lift third-quarter balances significantly, but this year’s $5 billion increase was one-third of the $15 billion rise in the third quarter of 2025. The Fed doesn’t say why.
This was the first fall under the new federal borrowing caps, including the end of Grad PLUS loans for new graduate students.
How This Connects
The Fed’s $180 billion figure and FSA’s count of about $234 billion in defaulted federal student loans are separate measurements.
The Fed samples Equifax credit reports covering federal and private student loans, and it excludes accounts a lender hasn’t reported within three months. FSA counts defaults directly from the federal portfolio, the more direct source that shows a $180 billion default figure for December 2025.
For borrowers with their own federal student loans who are behind but not yet in default, an income-driven repayment plan is the way to avoid default. The Repayment Assistance Plan sets payments as low as $10 a month, and our RAP calculator shows what a payment would be. A borrower with $45,000 in adjusted gross income and no dependents would pay about $150 a month under RAP, or 4% of their income. Collections, on the other hand, will take 15% of their income along with any tax refunds, a significantly higher amount than their RAP payment.
Borrowers already in default can get out through rehabilitation or consolidation. Rehabilitation takes nine on-time payments and removes the default from a credit report. Consolidation is faster, but the default record stays.
It’s important to remember that wage garnishment costs more than any repayment plan for nearly every borrower, so defaulting is never a smart path.
What’s Next
FSA’s next quarterly portfolio update, with data through September 30, will show whether defaults kept rising through the summer. The Education Department and Treasury have said they plan to restart wage garnishment on defaulted federal student loans after pausing it earlier in 2026.
The New York Fed’s fourth-quarter report, due in early 2027, will show whether the 10.9% delinquency rate keeps climbing.
Editor: Colin Graves
The post Student Loan Delinquency Hits 10.9% In New York Fed Q3 2026 Report appeared first on The College Investor.
Retail investors pile into corporate bonds as yields near 6%
Retail investors pile into corporate bonds as yields near 6%