Author: Cory Turner

Starting on July 1, the federal government will make some big changes to how student loans can be repaid or forgiven. A MARTÍNEZ, HOST: Some major student loan changes go into effect on July 1. They were part of Republicans’ One Big Beautiful Act last year. NPR education correspondent Cory Turner runs through the top six changes in 90 seconds.CORY TURNER, BYLINE: All right. Here we go.(SOUNDBITE OF TIMER BEEPING)TURNER: One – it’s the end of the short-lived Biden-era repayment plan called SAVE. If you’re one of the 7 million borrowers who is still enrolled in SAVE, it’s time to…

Student loan borrowers who sign up for, or already use, auto pay will get a 1 percentage point discount on interest for two years, starting July 1. Daniel de la Hoz/Moment RF via Getty Images hide caption toggle caption Daniel de la Hoz/Moment RF via Getty Images Student loan borrowers who enroll in automatic payments will get a much bigger discount on interest starting July 1, the U.S. Department of Education says. Auto pay has long offered a modest discount off borrowers’ interest rate — .25 percentage points — but after millions of borrowers opted out during the long COVID…

On July 1, a host of new student loan changes from last year’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act will kick in, including the end of a short-lived Biden-era repayment plan, the start of two Republican-designed repayment plans and strict new borrowing limits for some students. There’s a lot to parse, and not every change will impact every borrower. So we’ve designed this story to make it easy to find the guidance that does apply to you, or to the borrower in your life. To get started, click on the student loan status that best describes your situation below: You’re enrolled…

Education Secretary Linda McMahon has acknowledged that, in some areas, the overall reduction-in-force at her agency has gone too far. Kent Nishimura/AFP via Getty Images hide caption toggle caption Kent Nishimura/AFP via Getty Images President Donald Trump’s plans to close the U.S. Department of Education have run headlong into an awkward reality: The agency does important work that still needs doing. After losing roughly half its staff in last year’s big reduction-in-force, the department’s student loan office is in a hiring boom. The Office of Federal Student Aid (FSA) is adding around 380 new workers, according to internal documents obtained…

A nurse checks a patient’s heart rate. kieferpix/Getty Images hide caption toggle caption kieferpix/Getty Images A coalition of 24 states and the District of Columbia filed a lawsuit in federal court Tuesday challenging a Trump administration rule that limits access to federal student loans for borrowers earning a graduate degree in several popular, healthcare-related fields. “Higher education is expensive, and our health care system is already under immense strain,” New York Attorney General Letitia James said in a statement. “This rule will shut talented people out of critical professions and leave communities with fewer health care providers they desperately need.”…

The pandemic-era backslide in math and reading scores for students across the U.S. was not a sudden catastrophe but the continuation of a brutal, decade-long “learning recession” that began years before COVID-19’s arrival. That’s according to the latest Education Scorecard, an annual deep-dive into student data from The Educational Opportunity Project at Stanford University and Harvard University’s Center for Education Policy Research. The new Scorecard, released Wednesday and in its fourth year, offers several revelations for families, educators and policymakers looking for clarity — and hope — at a time when public education has been blamed and battered for those…

With school choice programs ascendant not just in Iowa but across the U.S., Cedar Rapids offers a preview of who wins and who loses when education meets the free market. JUANA SUMMERS, HOST: This is ALL THINGS CONSIDERED from NPR News. I’m Juana Summers.SCOTT DETROW, HOST: And I’m Scott Detrow. As in many Republican-controlled states, Iowa’s leaders have gone all in on school choice, pushing to create and expand alternatives to public schools. This has created a big problem for the Cedar Rapids public school district, which has been losing students and dollars to the competition, and now it is…

The average salary for a public school teacher in the U.S. rose to $74,495 in the last school year, up 3.5% from the year before. But adjusted for inflation, today’s teachers are estimated to be earning less, not more, than they were in 2017. That’s according to a new review of school-related data from the National Education Association (NEA), the nation’s largest teachers union with 3 million members. The annual release includes the latest data — collected directly from state departments of education – on teacher and support staff salaries, student enrollment and even how much money schools are getting…

Principal Condra Allred visits a third grade class at Cleveland Elementary School in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, in April. Soon, Allred expects to hear for certain if her school will close. Cliff Jette for NPR hide caption toggle caption Cliff Jette for NPR On an unseasonably warm February morning, Principal Condra Allred walked the hallways of Cleveland Elementary School’s 76-year-old building wearing a pink fanny pack slung over one shoulder like a bandolier. Inside the pack, a walkie-talkie squawked with the voices of staff who needed back-up on the playground, or a bathroom break, or help soothing a troubled student. Allred…

The Energy Department is slated to move into the Education Department’s current headquarters later this year. Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images hide caption toggle caption Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images In the latest effort by the Trump administration to dismantle the U.S. Department of Education, it announced on Thursday that all staff will be leaving the department’s longtime, Washington, D.C., headquarters in the Lyndon B. Johnson building, which the administration estimates “is roughly 70% vacant.” “Thanks to the hard work of so many, we have made unprecedented progress in reducing the federal education footprint,” said Education Secretary Linda McMahon in…