Allison Ellsworth says building a breakout brand takes more than a good product. With Jetty, she’s trying to apply the lessons she learned at Poppi while proving that brand-building can be a repeatable skill.
Home Blog
Business is hard until you build systems like this
Work with me to systemise your business in 12 weeks;
SOP GPT;
source
New York Part-Time TAP Now Covers Students Taking 3 Credits
Key Points
- New York’s Higher Education Services Corporation (HESC) administered $1 billion in state financial aid to nearly 300,000 students in 2025-26, including 152,438 who newly qualified under higher TAP income limits.
- Part-Time TAP now covers students taking as few as three credits a semester, down from six, after the state merged three part-time programs into one.
- A three-credit student can get TAP, but federal student loans require at least half-time enrollment.
New York’s Higher Education Services Corporation (HESC) administered $1 billion in state financial aid to nearly 300,000 students in 2025-26, according to Governor Kathy Hochul’s announcement. That count includes 152,438 students who newly benefited from higher income limits for the Tuition Assistance Program (TAP).
The biggest change landed for students paying for college part-time. The 2025-26 state budget merged three part-time programs into a single Part-Time TAP award, and it cut the minimum course load from six credits to three. Aid for Part-Time Study and the Part-Time Scholarship no longer run as separate programs.
HESC began letting colleges certify Part-Time TAP for students taking three to five credits on October 22, 2025.
Save For Later
Would you like to save this?
Why It Matters
One three-credit class is now enough to qualify for a New York grant that never has to be repaid. That puts TAP within reach of students who can only fit one course around work or family. A Trellis survey of students who left college without a degree found 72% worked while enrolled and 25% were raising children.
The income change reaches further into the middle class. New York raised the dependent student limit in the 2024-25 budget from $80,000 to $125,000 in net taxable income. Net taxable income comes from the family’s New York tax return after deductions, so families with gross pay above $125,000 can still land under the limit.
Our New York financial aid and college cost breakdown shows how TAP works alongside Excelsior and other state awards.
Who Qualifies For Part-Time TAP Now?
Part-Time TAP covers New York residents taking 3 to 11 credits a semester toward a degree at an eligible New York college, according to HESC’s Part-Time TAP rules.
HESC prorates the full-time TAP award by the credits a student takes. It lists full-time awards of $1,000 to $5,665 a year, and the income limits match full-time TAP for New York families. Students who don’t meet the citizenship or residency rules can apply through the NYS DREAM Act.
.tci-nytap{border:2px solid #141414;border-radius:8px;overflow:hidden;margin:24px 0;font-family:inherit;color:#141414;background:#fff}.tci-nytap .tci-nytap-head{background:#141414;color:#fff;padding:14px 18px;font-size:18px;font-weight:700;line-height:1.3}.tci-nytap .tci-nytap-head span{color:#f6c061}.tci-nytap table{width:100%;border-collapse:collapse;font-size:15px;line-height:1.45;margin:0}.tci-nytap th{background:#f9f7f5;color:#55504a;text-transform:uppercase;font-size:12px;letter-spacing:.06em;text-align:left;padding:10px 14px;border-bottom:1px solid #e5e0d8}.tci-nytap td{padding:12px 14px;border-bottom:1px solid #e5e0d8;vertical-align:top}.tci-nytap tbody tr:nth-child(even) td{background:#fcfbf9}.tci-nytap td.tci-nytap-label{font-weight:700;width:38%}.tci-nytap .tci-nytap-foot{background:#f9f7f5;color:#8a8378;font-size:12px;padding:10px 14px}@media (max-width:640px){.tci-nytap thead{display:none}.tci-nytap table,.tci-nytap tbody,.tci-nytap tr,.tci-nytap td{display:block;width:100%;box-sizing:border-box}.tci-nytap tr{border-bottom:1px solid #e5e0d8;padding:6px 0}.tci-nytap td{border-bottom:none;padding:4px 14px}.tci-nytap td.tci-nytap-label{width:100%;font-size:16px}.tci-nytap tbody tr:nth-child(even) td{background:transparent}}
New York Part-Time TAP Rules For 2026-27
| Rule | What HESC Requires |
|---|---|
| Credits Per Semester | 3 to 11 credits toward a degree (was 6 to 11 before 2025-26) |
| Programs Merged In | Aid for Part-Time Study and the Part-Time Scholarship |
| Award Amount | Full-time TAP award prorated by credits taken |
| Dependent Student Income Limit | $125,000 net taxable income |
| Independent Married, No Dependents | $60,000 net taxable income |
| Independent Single, No Dependents | $30,000 net taxable income |
| Grade Requirement | Cumulative C average, no waiver allowed |
| Minimum Tuition Charge | $200 a year |
| 2026-27 Deadline | June 30, 2027 |
Source: HESC. The College Investor.
The fine print matters more at three credits than at nine:
- Academic pace: HESC warns that taking only three credits for more than four consecutive semesters can leave students short of satisfactory academic progress credit requirements.
- Eligibility clock: Part-Time TAP draws on the same lifetime TAP eligibility as full-time awards, capped at four years of full-time or eight years of part-time study.
- Federal student loans: Three credits falls below half-time, so students at that load generally can’t borrow federal student loans. A Pell Grant can still apply at a reduced amount.
- Grades: Students need a cumulative C average, and HESC won’t let a Good Academic Standing waiver cover a shortfall.
What Else The Annual Report Showed
Veterans gained more access to financial aid as well. Since July 1, 2025, New York’s Veterans Tuition Award covers veterans with at least four years of active duty, even without combat service. For 2025-26, the award equals average SUNY undergraduate tuition of $7,070 or actual tuition, whichever is less.
The state says support through the program rose about 70%, and our state-by-state list of veteran tuition benefits shows how New York compares.
The report also tracked application gains. New York ranked sixth nationally in FAFSA completion by June 2026, according to the state. Completion rose about 6% from the prior class. That came in the same year the class of 2026 set a national FAFSA completion record. About 130 colleges waived fees on roughly 300,000 applications during College Application Month in 2025. The state valued those waivers at $15 million.
That 300,000 figure counts applications rather than students, since one senior can apply to several colleges. Families can still use the New York windows in our list of free college application programs, including CUNY’s free applications for New York seniors through November 16.
How This Connects
TAP pays tuition, which is the smaller part of the bill at SUNY. Four-year SUNY schools charge $7,070 in in-state tuition and fees, according to our New York college cost data. On-campus cost of attendance averages about $24,800. Housing, food, books and transportation sit outside TAP, and they make up most of a student’s cost of attendance.
That’s the same limit we flag with free-tuition offers, which usually stop at tuition.
We tell families to price the full cost of attendance over four or five years with 5% to 8% annual increases. Part-time students need that math even more, since a degree at three credits a semester takes far longer than four years. Only 33.7% of part-time students in the fall 2018 cohort earned a degree within six years, according to a national college completion report. Among full-time students, 67.2% did.
What’s Next
The 2026-27 TAP deadline is June 30, 2027, and students apply through the FAFSA or HESC’s separate TAP application. Students starting in fall 2027 need the 2027-28 FAFSA, which is already open. HESC has also picked a vendor for a new financial aid processing portal, though the announcement didn’t give a launch date.
Students thinking about dropping to one class for spring 2027 should ask their financial aid office how the lighter load changes their TAP award first. Colleges can set earlier priority dates of their own, so check our FAFSA deadlines by state and school before you file.
Editor: Colin Graves
The post New York Part-Time TAP Now Covers Students Taking 3 Credits appeared first on The College Investor.
Amazon Blink Camera Sale: Save Up to 78% on Security Cameras and Doorbells
This article contains Amazon affiliate links.
Amazon has some big discounts on Blink security cameras and video doorbells, with select devices and bundles marked down by as much as 78%.
Here are some of the deals worth checking out:
Best Blink Deals
- Blink Mini 2K+ Camera for $15.99 (regularly $39.99).
- Blink Outdoor 4 + Video Doorbell Bundle for $27.99 (regularly $129.99).
- Blink Outdoor 2K+ Camera for $34 (regularly $89).
- Blink Battery Doorbell 2K+ for $38 (regularly $79).
- Blink Mini 2K+ 3-Pack for $43 (regularly $109).
- Blink Outdoor 2K+ 5-Camera System for $119.99 (regularly $349.99).
These deals include options for indoor and outdoor security, with features such as motion alerts, night vision, and two-way audio. Some advanced features and cloud storage may require a paid subscription.
Shop All Blink Deals at Amazon. Prices and availability can change at any time.
Disclaimer: As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases made through this article. Using links on the site for Amazon purchases is the best way you can support the site as you normally can’t earn cash back for these purchases. But, you should still check shopping portals such as Rakuten, TopCashback, RebatesMe, ShopBack and others for possible cashback. Your support is always greatly appreciated!
The 1%’s latest status symbol: a third kid. ‘It has become rarer for everyone else,’ economist says
For decades, the markers of extreme wealth were easy to spot: the second home, the fancy cars, the Ivy League education. New analysis of Federal Reserve data points to a subtler one: a third child.
Mike Konczal, vice president of policy and research at the Economic Security Project and a former White House economist, studied households headed by 45- to 64-year-olds in his analysis of the Fed’s Survey of Consumer Finances, pooling five surveys from 2013 through 2025. He found that 49% of top-1% earners have three or more children, compared with about 40% of the rest of the top 10%.
Families with four or more kids are about as common in both groups, so the gap comes down to the third child: 34% of the 1% stop at exactly three, versus 24% of the merely affluent.
What changed isn’t the rich. Since the 1990s, families with three or more kids have become less common overall and among the rest of the top 10%, while the 1%’s share barely moved. “What’s new is that it has become rarer for everyone else,” Konczal writes.
Big families thin out in the upper middle class. Rank families by wealth instead of income, and among those wealthier than about three-quarters of Americans their age, but well short of the top, only about a third have three or more kids.
That’s well below families further down the wealth ladder. In the top 1%, half do.
Many of these families earn too much for federal child care subsidies, which are capped at 85% of a state’s median income, but not enough to hire their way around the problem.
Elaine Shi and her husband once thought they might have four kids. They stopped at three. Asked how much cost factored in, Shi, the CEO and co-founder of body-composition scanning company BodySpec, said simply: “None.” What settled it was their third child’s “firecracker personality,” along with her health during each pregnancy.
Shi doesn’t see that divide among the people she knows. “Candidly, this has not been my experience,” she says. What stands out to her is timing: “Relatively few of my peers in our late 30s have chosen to have three children because they started having the first one relatively late in life.”
Americans still say they want three
Big families used to be ordinary. In 1976, about two-thirds of mothers in their early 40s had three or more kids; by 2016, 38% did, according to Pew Research Center.
The U.S. fertility rate, close to two children per woman in 1995, hit a record low of 1.57 in 2025, by a Wall Street Journal calculation using federal data.
Americans still say they want more: 42% called three or more kids ideal in Gallup’s July 2025 poll. But more than 7 in 10 say that raising kids is unaffordable for most people, according to BYU’s 2025 American Family Survey.
Where the money goes
Shi’s third child arrived at a hectic moment. Her older two, about two years apart, were starting school, and their needs were diverging.
“It didn’t seem fair to drag an infant along to every gymnastics and swim class, nor did it seem fair to forego those kinds of activities to stick to a baby’s nap schedule,” she says. She was also mid-fundraise and needed to get back to work fast. “So we ended up investing in multiple caregivers to better meet everyone’s needs.”
The biggest financial change from two kids to three, she says, was “definitely childcare.”
Most families can’t hire their way out. Full-day care for a child cost $6,552 to $15,600 a year in 2022, or 8.9% to 16% of median family income, according to the Labor Department. And that’s for one child.
By one LendingTree estimate, a two-child household needs to earn $400,000 a year for childcare to be affordable.
A third kid often means a bigger house, too. The typical existing single-family home sold for $412,500 in 2024, about five times the median household income, according to Harvard’s Joint Center for Housing Studies. In the 1990s, it was closer to three times.
Why it matters beyond the family budget
The U.S. recorded just over half a million more births than deaths in 2025, and Census Bureau and Congressional Budget Office projections show that cushion ending in the next decade, the Wall Street Journal reported. After that, population growth would depend on immigration.
Economists warn that fewer births mean a smaller future workforce, slower growth and more strain on Social Security.
Konczal cautions that his numbers show a correlation, but it’s the one you’d expect if money solves the hard parts of raising kids. He argues that some of what money buys the rich, like stability and support, could be offered to families now, through policy aimed at the years when kids are young and budgets are tightest.
Shi’s own fix is more about time than money. She and her husband run BodySpec together, and their favorite workday, she says, is Saturday.
The office is empty, and one of the kids usually tags along, most often her son, the middle child. He gets to build a LEGO set without his sisters taking it apart, then has lunch alone with his mom.
“Nobody told us this counted as work-life balance, but it’s the closest thing we’ve found,” Shi says.
Mortgage Rates Holding Onto Recent Improvement Heading Into Fed Week
Mortgage rates are a touch better to start the week, moving back toward their best levels in a month.
The 30-year fixed is averaging close to 7.375%, down from recent highs of 7.625%.
While not great, it could be worse and there’s still hope rates can inch closer to the high 6s before the midterms.
In the meantime, the “win” will be avoiding any major setbacks that push us back toward recent highs.
And this is a loaded week, with another Fed meeting, a major inflation report, and Big Tech earnings all coming over the next few days.
Lower Oil Is Helping Mortgage Rates Today
Oil prices are lower today after surging on Friday, with Brent crude falling on hopes the situation with Iran improves or at least doesn’t escalate.
However, there’s also been chatter about strikes on Iran after the midterms, which are now just over a week away.
Oil remains above $100 a barrel, and that continues to be a problem because higher energy costs feed inflation, and bonds hate inflation.
That keeps upward pressure on bond yields and mortgage rates follow.
So until oil prices really settle down, any major relief for mortgage rates will likely prove elusive.
The Fed Could Impact Mortgage Rates This Week
The Fed wraps up its October meeting Wednesday afternoon, and while a rate hike looks very unlikely, what Fed chair Kevin Warsh says can still move mortgage rates.
As I always say, the Fed doesn’t control mortgage rates, but Fed rate expectations can certainly play a role.
The current odds of standing pat are nearly 90%, per CME. So nobody really expects any movement in the federal funds rate.
But they will be looking to Warsh for clues about what happens next and when another hike might come.
Perhaps he won’t want to rock the boat right before the midterms, though that’s just a guess on my part.
The bigger question is the December meeting, where markets are currently pricing in roughly a 73% chance of a hike.
That means Warsh’s press conference following the meeting will matter a lot more than the decision itself.
In other words, a hold here is expected and isn’t necessarily going to be good news for mortgage rates unless Warsh frames it as such.
If the Fed sounds like it’s backing off a December hike due to the recent stock market rout, bond yields (and mortgage rates) could head lower even with no policy change.
Thursday’s GDP and PCE Inflation Data May Reinforce Recent Trend
A day after the Fed meets, we get the first look at third quarter GDP, along with the September PCE report, which is the Fed’s preferred inflation gauge.
A favorable PCE report could take some pressure off bonds as well and also make a December hike a little less likely.
A hot report would do the opposite, so that’ll be the thing to keep an eye on this week.
Still, it’s just one report, but it does have the power to keep this recent mortgage rate rally going or pump the brakes.
Pay attention to whether the 10-year bond yield can stay under 5%, since that’s obviously a big threshold.
Does Tech Matter Most to Mortgage Rates Right Now?
I was having a conversation with another dad this weekend who follows the market closely.
I noted that the only thing that really got bond yields to stop rising was the tech stock selloff.
On the one hand, it’s troubling that nothing else seemed to work. On the other, there are still lots of levers that haven’t been pulled yet that could do the same.
The biggest one being some sort of positive development in the Middle East.
In the meantime, we have a lot of tech earnings this week, with Microsoft and Alphabet reporting Wednesday and Amazon on Thursday.
That will factor into mortgage rates because last week’s big bond rally was mostly about worries related to AI spending.
You aren’t necessarily rooting for major weakness there, but if those companies do report poor numbers, it’ll likely help mortgage rates move even lower from here.
Read on: Compare mortgage rates and monthly payments side by side with my mortgage rate calculator.
Latest posts by Colin Robertson (see all)
Great News for Take Two Interactive Stock Investors
Parkev Tatevosian, CFA has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Take-Two Interactive Software. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy. Parkev Tatevosian is an affiliate of The Motley Fool and may be compensated for promoting its services. If you choose to subscribe through his link, he will earn some extra money that supports his channel. His opinions remain his own and are unaffected by The Motley Fool.
The Best Time To Buy Bonds In Years? | Market Sense | Fidelity Investments
What signals are the bond markets sending? Some investors have been on edge as long-term bond yields around the world climb to levels not seen in decades. At the same time, the markets are awaiting the Federal Reserve’s September interest rate decision, which is adding another layer of uncertainty. On this episode of Market Sense, Fidelity portfolio manager Julian Potenza, co-manager of the Fidelity Total Bond Fund, shares his unique perspective on the current environment that may surprise you, and discusses where investors may find opportunities in the months ahead.
00:00 Market Sense Introduction
01:47 Why are bond yields rising?
05:45 What do higher bond yields mean for stocks?
09:28 September Fed meeting
13:39 Treasury buyback strategy
17:47 The market’s reaction to Treasury buyback strategy
20:50 $40 trillion national debt and what it could mean for long-term bonds
22:54 Bond opportunities?
25:06 What’s happening with gold and Bitcoin?
26:47 What’s the bond story for 2027?
28:28 Timmer’s take
Questions? Drop them below 👇 and we’ll reply right in the comments.
• Like what you see? Register for the next event: •
• Subscribe to Fidelity Viewpoints:
• To see more videos, subscribe on YouTube:
• Follow Fidelity on Reddit:
• Follow Fidelity on Instagram:
• Follow Fidelity on TikTok:
• Follow Fidelity on Facebook:
• Follow Fidelity on LinkedIn:
• Ask Fidelity on X:
Fidelity Brokerage Services LLC, Member NYSE, SIPC, 900 Salem Street, Smithfield, RI 02917
DISCLAIMER: For workplace use, business to assume risk of promoting.
1280947.1.0
#bonds #bondmarketi #Federalreserve #Interestrates #Treasurys
source
Do Language Models Need a Markowitz Moment
Financial researchers have been turning words into quantifiable data for almost two decades. In a 2007 Journal of Finance study, Paul Tetlock quantified pessimism in a Wall Street Journal column and demonstrated its relationship with market prices and trading volume. A year later, Tetlock and colleagues extended the approach to company-specific news, finding that negative language helped forecast earnings while prices initially underreacted to the information it contained.
Yet extracting financial meaning from language was not straightforward. In 2011, Tim Loughran and Bill McDonald showed that almost three-quarters of the words labelled “negative” by a widely used general-purpose dictionary were not normally negative in financial contexts. A “liability” is not necessarily bad news simply because every day English makes it sound ominous. Their finance-specific dictionaries improved the measurement, but the broader lesson was more important: a method could process language consistently while still misunderstanding what that language meant economically.
Meanwhile, computational linguistics was developing new ways to represent language itself. Word2Vec and related models made it possible to compare words with related meanings even when they did not literally overlap. The significance was not that computers had suddenly discovered meaning, but that relationships between concepts could increasingly be quantified. This helped transform search, allowing systems to identify relevant information based on meaning rather than exact keywords.
For finance, these advances opened the possibility of understanding not just which words appeared in a document, but what they referred to and how they related to one another. Aspect-based sentiment analysis, for example, could distinguish optimism about a company’s sales from concern about its margins, while contextual language models made representations sensitive to surrounding text. Financial-domain models such as FinBERT brought these developments back to Loughran and McDonald’s original insight: understanding language in general is not quite the same as understanding it in finance – context matters.
[FL, NJ, NY] Popular Bank $600 Business Checking Bonus
![[FL, NJ, NY] Popular Bank $600 Business Checking Bonus](https://globalinvestmentstrategy.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/11/popular-bank-600-768x571.png "[FL, NJ, NY] Popular Bank $600 Business Checking Bonus")
Update 11/7/26: Deal is back until November 30, 2026. Now a $600 bonus (was $400). Hat tip to reader Joe
Offer at a glance
- Maximum bonus amount: $600
- Availability: FL, NJ, NY.
- Direct deposit required: None
- Additional requirements: $2,500 for three months + 15 transactions
- Hard/soft pull: Soft
- ChexSystems: Unknown, sensitive
- Credit card funding: None
- Monthly fees: $15, avoidable
- Early account termination fee:$25, six months
- Household limit: None
- Expiration date: July 3, 2026
The Offer
Direct link to offer
- Popular Bank is offering a $600 business bonus when you open a business checking account and complete the following requirements:
- Open a Popular Primary, Preferred, or Platinum Business Checking account
- Fund and maintain an average of $2,500 for the first 3 months
- Complete 15 qualifying transactions* within the first 3 months (includes debit card withdrawals, bill payments, wires credits and debits, ACH credits, Zelle credits and remote deposits by mobile or scanner)
The Fine Print
- This offer (the “Offer”) is for a limited time to eligible customers only and may be terminated or discontinued at any time by Popular Bank, in its sole discretion. The Offer is not available to existing Popular Bank business checking account customers, or whose accounts have been closed on or after April 27, 2026.
- Your Popular Bank business checking account will be credited within 30 days following the end of the month in which you completed all Offer requirements. See details below on how to qualify.
- To qualify for the Offer, you need to:
- A. Beginning Monday, April 27, 2026 through and including Friday, July 3, 2026, open a qualifying business checking account product from one of our Popular Bank Business Packages (Primary, Preferred, or Platinum)**;
- B. Fund the account with monies not currently on deposit with Popular Bank within 30 days and maintain an average ledger balance of $2,500 through the first 120 days of account opening; and
- C. Starting the first of month after the account is opened, complete 15 qualifying transactions within three months. Qualifying transactions must be one or a combination of the following transaction types: debit card withdrawals, bill payments, wires credits and debits, ACH credits, Zelle credits, and remote deposits by mobile or scanner.
- IMPORTANT REQUIREMENT: Your new Popular Bank Business Checking account must be open and in good standing at the time the Cash Bonus (that may be earned as part of the Offer) is to be credited to you. The Cash Bonus will be credited directly to your new Popular Bank business checking account.
- To be eligible for the Cash Bonus, U.S. persons must furnish a valid IRS Form W-9 (Request for Taxpayer Identification Number and Certification).
- Foreign persons must furnish a valid IRS Form W-8BEN (Certificate of Beneficial Owner for United States Tax Withholding and Reporting (Entities)).
- Accounts subject to backup withholding are ineligible. Popular Bank will issue a 1099 INT and you are responsible for any taxes that may be due on the Offer.
- Only one per business entity. The Offer cannot be reproduced, purchased, sold, transferred or traded. Business entity shall not have closed an account with Popular Bank within the past twelve (12) months.
- Account opening is subject to Popular Bank’s sole review and approval, meeting all of Popular Bank’s new deposit account criteria and other applicable requirements and is not guaranteed. While we don’t require a minimum deposit to open, Popular Bank may consider your account closed if it has a zero balance for sixty (60) days.
- All bank account bonuses are treated as income/interest and as such you have to pay taxes on them
Avoiding Fees
Monthly Fees
Primary business checking is the easiest to keep fee free. This has a $15 monthly fee that is waived if $5,000 in average checking balances is maintained.
Early Account Termination Fee
There is an early account termination fee of $25 if closed within 6 months.
Our Verdict
Looks like you need to submit a form to sign up, not sure if it’ll require going in branch to open or if it can be done over the phone. We will add this to our list of the best business checking promotions.
Hat tip to reader ISAAC G
Useful posts regarding bank bonuses: