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More than one-third of summer vacationers say they are willing to take on debt to pay for their travel, according to a Bankrate survey.
You lose the plot — and your money — when what’s supposed to be for you becomes about showcasing it for everyone else.
When planning a vacation, dial into the things that are important to you and your family — not what’s trending online.

Two winters ago, we vacationed to a hot-spot resort in the Caribbean with our family. Around the perimeter of its casino concourse, a variety of attractions buzzed for our consumption.
We found an art installation to climb on, faux floral arches to position ourselves around and giant milkshakes topped with full desserts in sugar-rimmed glasses to sip from — well, not before the photos.

Photos came first.
To be honest, it felt less like a vacation and more like a visit to one of those immersive exhibits where everything’s a photo-op and everyone you know has taken the same exact photos there. This is because they have taken the same exact photos there, and doubtless, geotagged their location.

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Social media has transformed the reason we take photos on vacation. According to a survey conducted by Forbes Advisor, 82% of Gen Zers and 57% of millennials visit certain destinations because they saw them on social media. Many people post their travels in real time, engaging in a perpetual game of capture and share. According to the same survey, 74% of respondents feel some kind of pressure to imitate the travel content they consume online.
Without question, we fell into that camp on our vacation. It was performative, exhausting, and above all, absurdly expensive.
Don’t get us wrong — we love social media for connecting with friends, drawing inspiration from others, and yes, even drooling a bit over beautiful destinations. But its hazard lies in clouding your better judgment when making financial decisions that might not be worth it in real life.

This summer, a little more than half of Americans are planning to take a vacation, according to a Bankrate survey. Out of those travelers, 36% are prepared to take on debt to pay for it. Costs continue to rise across the board for flights, accommodations, even dining, and consumer buying is keeping pace. In the process, many travelers are losing sight of their long-term goals to capture something that feels important in a moment but isn’t at all.

‘Pics or it didn’t happen’ comes at a cost

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You lose the plot — and your money — when what’s supposed to be for you becomes about showcasing it for everyone else. It’s a classic case of “pics or it didn’t happen.” You can end up spending more time focused on the wrong elements of your vacation, like positioning yourself for the perfect sunset photo-op but then not watching the actual sunset, or filming half of a concert with the camera flipped around on you.
We’ve all done this; it’s no one person’s fault. But is snapping those pics worth paying inflated prices? Going into credit card debt? Stretching your annual vacation budget to accommodate the resort everyone claims to love so much?
Without core memories affixed to those photos, they are not nearly as valuable. The casino resort was crowded, the restaurants priced like Las Vegas, the waits long for almost anything. We had a lovely time together as a family, but almost nothing we snapped a photo of contributed to that time.

Dial into vacation elements that are important to you

When you’re trying to budget and plan for your summer vacation, come up with your cost ceiling first. See how much your proposed travel and accommodation costs eat into that number. If they almost reach your limit, maybe that version of the trip is too expensive. You want to leave room to experience the vacation, and those experiences will come at a cost.
In terms of what you choose to do, put yourselves at the center of those decisions. What will cause you to depart for home from your vacation saying, that felt really good?
Dial into the things that are important to you and your family — not what’s trending online. If you’re into food, focus on the food. If you’re into adventure, invest in that. When you set your itinerary with intention, you find the perspective you need to scale back on the superfluous things that cause you to overspend.

Finally, try putting your phone away or leaving it in the room, just for a little while. Tap into all five senses instead of diverting to some of your ordinary coping mechanisms. Nothing will be more memorable than trying, tasting or seeing something new that you don’t get in the ordinary course of your life.
Take it from us. We went away over the same weekend the following year to a beautiful, much more low-key resort on the beach. While there, we read whole books. Our phones lived in our bags. Our feet lived in the sand. Sure, we took photos, but we took more away from our time together than any photo-op would capture.
— By Heather and Douglas Boneparth of The Joint Account, a money newsletter for couples. Douglas is a certified financial planner and the president of Bone Fide Wealth in New York City. Heather, an attorney, is the firm’s director of business and legal affairs. Douglas is also a member of the CNBC Financial Advisor Council.

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Consumers lost a whopping $1.14 billion to romance scams in 2023, according to the Federal Trade Commission.
“Romance scams tend to be some of the more insidious because they prey on emotions,” said a fraud expert. “These things happen in real life, these aren’t just shows that we see on Netflix.” 

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Cybercriminals are targeting wealth accounts by tapping into a victim’s emotions.
So-called romance scams involve building a relationship and trust with the victim so that the target willingly provides access to their accounts or transfers money to the criminal, explained Tracy Kitten, the director of fraud and security at Javelin Strategy & Research, a financial research services firm.

Consumers lost $1.14 billion to romance scams in 2023, according to the Federal Trade Commission. Median losses per person amounted to $2,000, the highest reported losses for any form of imposter scam, the FTC found.
“Romance scams tend to be some of the more insidious because they prey on emotions,” Kitten said. “These things happen in real life, these aren’t just shows that we see on Netflix.” 
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“What people need to realize is that people behind these types of scams could teach a master class in human behavior,” said Theresa Payton, a former White House chief information officer who is now the CEO of cybersecurity firm Fortalice Solutions.
“They know the different emotional trigger points that we all have, and that’s when they strike,” Payton added.

‘They trust the person who’s manipulating them’

Romance scammers trick their victims into thinking they’re someone they’re not. Over time, the criminal will develop a relationship with the victim, Kitten explained.
Once trust is established, the victim may be more easily convinced to send money, provide access to their bank accounts, and, in some cases, even launder funds for them, she said.
About 22% of surveyed financial advisors with clients affected by fraud have had clients who fell victim to a romance scam, according to Javelin. The survey fielded 1,500 financial advisors in July 2023.
Oftentimes, cybercriminals are reaching out and developing relationships over social media platforms, Kitten said.
It’s a really easy way for them to fool their victims because there’s no face-to-face contact,” she said.

About 40% of people who said they lost money to a romance scam in 2022 said the contact started on social media, the FTC found.
Almost three-quarters, or 73%, of consumers who had been victimized by a romance scam were men, according to Javelin data. For that report, Javelin polled 5,000 U.S. households in November 2022.
“At this point, we’re all exposed,” Fortalice Solutions’ Payton said. “Even if you don’t have a big social media footprint, your data points are out there.”  

Spotting ‘the biggest red flag’ for romance scams

There are ways to detect if a romance scammer has targeted you. “The biggest red flag,” said Payton, is requests for money. 
Here are five more warning signs:

Unsolicited text messages: Scammers can use bots that can reach out to hundreds of people at a time through cell phone numbers, email addresses and social media accounts. Some messages are as simple as “hi.” “All it takes is just for one person to take the bait,” she said.
Too good to be true: If the person is suddenly very interested in the same things as you, and wants to carry the conversation in a different direct messaging platform, that can be another red flag.
Refusal to meet in person: The scammer will make up excuses for not wanting to meet in real life. Yet sometimes the alternative can occur: The scammer might ask for money for travel expenses to come out and meet you, Payton said. 
Isolation attempts: If the scammer discourages you from talking to family or friends of the new romantic interest. 
Pressure tactics: If the new contact is badgering you to keep up the relationship, ask for money or financial information. 

In these long-term scams, it’s often hard for the victim to see that they’ve been scammed because “they trust the person who’s manipulating them,” Kitten said. 
Financial advisors can help their clients by educating them on what cybercrime could look like. Doing so can “go a long way” to help victims understand when they’ve been scammed, said Kitten.
Here are five things you can do to vet the new contact, according to Payton:

Reverse search the image: Use reverse-search tools for images online to verify the images the potential scammer is using.
Look at your privacy settings: Be mindful of the information that you share on social media.
If you meet someone, take your time: Make sure to ask questions about their background. Keep track of what they say and look for inconsistencies.
Avoid financial transactions: Do not send financial information or funds to the person at first ask. Talk to family, friends, trusted advisors and bankers about the situation.
Meet at a public spot: Ask to meet them in person in a public spot or close to a police station. If they act “sketchy,” said Payton, “you have your answer.”

Report suspicious profiles or messages to the online platform you’re using and then report the incident to the FTC at ReportFraud.ftc.gov. If the situation has escalated, report the incident to the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
Victims can seek free support and counseling through The Cybercrime Support Network, which offers a free 10-week virtual romance scam recovery group, led by licensed counselors, Payton said. More

Many retirees are still feeling the impact of higher prices.
Yet data points to a lower Social Security cost-of-living adjustment in 2025.
Here’s the most recent estimate based on the latest price movements.

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Retirees are still feeling the impact of higher prices.
Yet one buffer for the effects of inflation — the Social Security cost-of-living adjustment, or COLA, — may be lower next year.

As the rate of inflation moderates, the Social Security COLA for 2025 might be 3%, according to the latest estimate from Mary Johnson, an independent Social Security and Medicare policy analyst.
That estimate is lower than the 3.2% boost to benefits that more than 66 million beneficiaries saw starting in January. It is also substantially lower than the record 8.7% COLA beneficiaries saw in 2023 and the 5.9% COLA that went into effect in 2022 in response to record-high inflation.

How the Social Security COLA is calculated

The annual adjustments are based on a subset of the Consumer Price Index, known as the Consumer Price Index for Urban Wage Earners and Clerical Workers, or CPI-W.

Every year, the Social Security Administration compares the third quarter CPI-W data for that year with the third quarter of the previous year. If there is a percentage increase from one year to the next, that determines the COLA. However, if there is no increase, there is no COLA.
Because it is still very early in the year, the Social Security COLA estimate may be subject to change.

Why early COLA estimates for 2025 are lower

A look at the latest CPI-W data helps show why the increase is down from the record-high increases retirees recently saw.
The prices for certain categories saw a double-digit percentage decline compared with two years ago as of May. Fuel oil was down 35.3%; airline fares dropped 19.4%; and gasoline declined by 17.7%.

‘Undercounting real senior inflation’

Many retirees coped with inflation by making adjustments, such as cutting back on savings or dipping into existing assets, according to the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College.
“They take a big hit to their future wealth by doing that,” Laura Quinby, senior research economist at the Center for Retirement Research, previously told CNBC.com.
The effects of Social Security’s cost-of-living adjustments vary for individuals based on their personal expenses and where they live, according to Quinby.
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Some experts argue the CPI-W is not a perfect measure for retiree spending. For example, while the CPI-W assumes older adults spend about 66% of their income on housing, food and medical costs, in reality about 75% of their income is devoted to those costs, according to Johnson.
“This disparity suggests that my COLA estimate, which is based on the CPI-W, may be undercounting real senior inflation by more than 10 percent,” Johnson said.
Nevertheless, the latest CPI-W shows where inflation is subsiding and rising — which may ultimately affect next year’s COLA. More

Many retirees don’t think about taxes until it’s time to withdraw funds from a pre-tax account, which can be a costly mistake, financial experts say.
However, you can reduce your lifetime tax burden by strategically receiving more income in lower-earning years to fill your “buckets” or federal tax brackets.
It’s also important to consider taxes during the accumulation phase by diversifying contributions across pretax, Roth and brokerage accounts.

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Many retirees don’t think about taxes until it’s time to withdraw funds from a pretax account, which can be a costly mistake, financial experts say.
Only 3 in 10 Americans have a plan to reduce taxes on retirement savings, according to a Northwestern Mutual study from January that polled roughly 4,600 U.S. adults.

However, the “bucket strategy” is one way to minimize that burden, according to certified financial planner Sean Lovison, founder of Purpose Built Financial Services in the Philadelphia metro area.  
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You can reduce your lifetime tax burden by strategically receiving more income in lower-earning years to fill your “buckets” or federal tax brackets, said Lovison, who is also a certified public accountant. 
For example, if you’re in the 12% tax bracket before collecting Social Security, that could be a chance for Roth individual retirement account conversions to save on taxes later, he said.
Roth conversions transfer pretax or nondeductible IRA money to a Roth IRA, which won’t incur levies on future withdrawals. The trade-off is upfront taxes on your converted balance.

You could reduce pretax balances by converting enough to put yourself in the 22% or 24% tax bracket. Otherwise, you could be in the 32%, 35% or 37% tax bracket once Social Security and required minimum distributions, or RMDs, kick in, Lovison said.
Secure 2.0 pushed the beginning date for RMDs to age 73 starting in 2023 and that age jumps to 75 in 2033. Meanwhile, pretax 401(k) and IRA balances are growing.
“That’s a real issue right now that people don’t really think about,” Lovison said.

Focus on taxes in the ‘accumulation phase’

Often, investors don’t think about taxes until they start making withdrawals from pretax retirement accounts, said CFP Judy Brown at SC&H Group in the Washington, D.C., and Baltimore area. She is also a certified public accountant.
“They thought they had $1 million in their 401(k), but really it’s only $700,000 after taxes,” she said. “A lot of people see the value of tax planning when they get to that distribution.”
However, tax planning is key during the “accumulation phase,” as you’re growing your nest egg. Adding to pretax, Roth and brokerage accounts can provide “tax diversification,” Brown said.
Those accounts will provide “a lot of different levers to pull” to better manage your adjusted gross income in retirement, she added. More

The Biden administration’s new repayment plan for student loan borrowers — the Saving on a Valuable Education, or SAVE, plan — is facing legal challenges.
Here’s what relief borrowers can still expect.

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Millions of student loan borrowers were looking forward to a smaller monthly bill come July, until a legal challenge to the Biden administration’s new relief plan got in the way last week.
But on June 30, a federal appeals court gave the U.S. Department of Education the green light to implement a major provision of its new Saving on a Valuable Education, or SAVE, plan.

The bottom line: As promised, most enrolled borrowers should still see their July bills come down.
Here are some answers to other questions borrowers might have.

Why is the SAVE plan being challenged?

President Joe Biden rolled out the SAVE plan in the summer of 2023, describing it as “the most affordable student loan plan ever.” SAVE replaced the Education Department’s former REPAYE option, or Revised Pay As You Earn plan.
So far, around 8 million borrowers have signed up for the new income-driven repayment, or IDR, plan, according to the White House.
Under IDR plans, borrowers’ monthly payments are set based on a share of their discretionary income. They receive forgiveness after a set period, typically 20 years or 25 years.

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The SAVE plan has the most generous terms to date, which has led to the current controversy.
Instead of paying 10% of their discretionary income a month toward their undergraduate student debt, as they did under REPAYE, borrowers need to pay just 5%.
Those who earn less than roughly $15 an hour have a $0 monthly bill, and borrowers with smaller balances are entitled to loan forgiveness on an expedited timeline — in as little as 10 years.
“The SAVE plan is very generous to borrowers, almost like a grant after the fact,” higher education expert Mark Kantrowitz said in a previous interview with CNBC.

Where do the lawsuits against SAVE stand?

Republican-backed states, including Florida, Arkansas and Missouri, filed lawsuits against the SAVE plan earlier this year.
The states argued that the Biden administration was overstepping its authority with SAVE, and essentially trying to find a roundabout way to forgive student debt after the Supreme Court blocked its sweeping plan last year. In response, two federal judges in Kansas and Missouri temporarily halted significant parts of the SAVE plan on June 24.
As a result, the Biden administration was prevented from forgiving debt on a faster timeline under the new income-driven repayment plan and from further reducing borrowers’ payments in July, as it planned to.

Those rulings came down days before payments were set to drop. As a result, the U.S. Department of Justice geared up to appeal the injunctions and the Education Department announced it would temporarily pause payments for many SAVE borrowers while the legal proceedings played out.
It has now decided the payments will continue. That’s due to the fact that the Biden administration’s appeal against one of the injunctions, which prevented it from lowering payments, was successful. The case has not been decided yet, but at least for now the Education Department can proceed with reducing borrowers’ bills.
Meanwhile, the second injunction against the SAVE plan regarding expedited loan forgiveness, which came down last week from a federal judge in Missouri, remains in effect.

What does this mean for me?

As a result of its successful appeal, the Biden administration is currently moving ahead with the SAVE plan provision that slashes borrowers’ monthly payments to 5% of their discretionary income. Many people will see their bill cut in half.

If your loan servicer already sent you a bill that reflects your lower payment, you should plan to pay that bill in July, the Education Department said.
If you were placed in a forbearance because your loan servicer is still calculating your new lower payment or anticipated bills would be temporarily paused during the legal drama, you should aim to make your first payment in August —and that bill should be reduced.
If you have a $0 monthly bill under SAVE — which some 4.5 million people do — you will continue to owe nothing and be considered up to date on your payments, the department said. More

Cash savings are getting the best guaranteed returns in years.
Yet stocks are also climbing to all-time highs.
Holding too much cash can preclude you from benefitting from those gains, experts say.

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It wasn’t long ago that investors earned practically 0% returns on cash.
As the Federal Reserve has kept interest rates high to combat high inflation, you can easily earn 5% annual percentage yields on savings accounts and other low-risk vehicles.

Some experts are now warning it’s possible to get too comfortable with those super-safe returns and miss out on bigger market returns.
“We’re too obsessed with cash,” Callie Cox, chief market strategist at Ritholtz Wealth Management, wrote last week in a blog post.
An estimated $6 trillion in cash is parked in money market funds.
Industry research finds younger investors — those with the longest time horizon to absorb risk — are allocating the most to cash.
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More than half — 55% — of wealthy younger investors ages 21 to 43 ramped up their cash allocations in the past two years, compared to 46% of individuals ages 44 and up, recent research from Bank of America found.
While Bank of America focused on investors with at least $3 million in investable assets, trading and investment platform eToro earlier this year found younger investors are twice as likely as their parent’s generation to have increased their cash assets. The eToro survey polled 1,000 U.S. retail investors as part of a bigger pool of 10,000 in 13 countries, and respondents held at least one investment product.
“The bigger issue that not enough people are talking about is the fact that younger investors are over-allocating the cash because of the allure of the 5% savings rate,” Cox said in an interview with CNBC.com.
“Under-investing is a risk, and it’s one that I think more younger investors are susceptible to,” Cox said.

‘Day of reckoning’ for savers may be coming

Long term, a 5% return can fall short of the potential gains investors can earn in stocks. A more aggressive portfolio allocation to stocks may yield a 7% average annual rate of return. In some years that will be higher and in some lower.
The S&P 500 index may climb to 5,800 by the end of this year, bringing its total return to more than 20% for the year, Thomas Lee, managing partner at research firm Fundstrat Global Advisors, told CNBC’s “Squawk Box” on Monday.
That would follow a 24% return for the index in 2023, he noted, bringing the total for both years to around 50%. That would be “painful” for cash investors who missed out on those gains, as it would take them 10 years to achieve the same results, Lee explained.

“I think the end of this year is a little bit of a day of reckoning for those who have said, ‘Oh, I’m happy with my $6 trillion in cash earning 5%,’ when in reality, unless the economy is rolling into a recession, the expansion could continue for some time,” Lee said.
Not all experts are as optimistic, however.
The S&P 500 may fall more than 30% later this year if a recession hits, research firm BCA Research predicts.

How much cash savings you need

Of course, all investors should have some cash set aside, experts say. Financial advisors generally advise having at least three to six months’ worth of expenses in cash in case of an emergency.
Research often shows many Americans fall short of that goal. Americans have a median emergency savings of just $600, according to a recent survey from financial services company Empower.
Of Americans who do have cash savings, 67%, are still earning less than a 4% annual percentage yield, Bankrate recently found.
For goals one to two years away — or even three to five years away — it makes sense to allocate cash to make sure the money is there when you need it, according to Cox.
“But anything beyond five years, I would seriously consider putting that money into stocks or other more risky assets,” Cox said.

Market timing is ‘a fool’s errand’

Fear may be one reason why investors are tempted to sit on the sidelines in cash now.
But the risk of missing the market upside may be the bigger opportunity cost, experts say.
“Market timing is truly a fool’s errand, but lack of participation in the market is also foolish, particularly for long-term investors,” said Mark Hamrick, senior economic analyst at Bankrate.

While there’s always the possibility the markets could continue to go up indefinitely or plunge 50%, those are the edge cases, Cox said.
“You could be waiting a long time for that pullback if you just sit in cash,” Cox said.
The biggest risk for investors now is missing another leg of this rally, she said.
The environment for cash savings may be poised to change, as the Federal Reserve has signaled plans to eventually start cutting interest rates as inflation subsides.
That may make a 5% return on cash a thing of the past. Savers may lock in five-year certificates of deposit at today’s rates, Hamrick said. But they should be aware that they will need to pay a penalty if they want to access that money sooner than five years, he said.
“Yields for CDs, high-yield savings accounts, money market accounts and the like will remain elevated,” Hamrick said. “Rates are likely to come down, but not fall like a rock, rather fall like a feather.”

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Bigger individual retirement account balances can cause tax issues for retirees or their children who inherit the assets, experts say.
The median IRA or self-employed Keogh balance was $87,000 in 2022, up from $81,144 in 2019, according to an Employee Benefit Research Institute report.
As pretax balances grow, retirees can expect larger required minimum distributions, which can trigger tax consequences like higher premiums for Medicare Part B and Part D.

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Individual retirement accounts are getting bigger — and it can cause tax issues for retirees or their children who inherit the assets, experts say.
The median IRA or self-employed Keogh balance was $87,000 in 2022, up from $81,144 in 2019, according to a June report from the Employee Benefit Research Institute, which analyzed Federal Reserve data.

A separate Fidelity report found the average IRA balance was $127,745 during the first quarter of 2024, up 29% from 2014, based on an analysis of 45 million IRA, 401(k) and 403(b) accounts. 
While higher balances are typically a good thing, a bigger pretax IRA balance “can be a tax nightmare in retirement,” said certified financial planner Derek Williams with Veratis Advisors in Cary, North Carolina.
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The Employee Benefit Research Institute report found that more than 45% of IRA assets were in rollover IRAs, which are typically funded via past employer plans. Only about 17% of analyzed assets were in Roth IRAs, which don’t incur taxes on withdrawals.

Required minimum distributions can cause tax issues

Starting in 2023, most retirees need to begin required minimum distributions, or RMDs, by age 73, based on changes enacted by Secure 2.0. That age is extended to 75 starting in 2033. 
“Congress isn’t really helping people out,” said CFP Sean Lovison, founder of Purpose Built Financial Services in the Philadelphia metro area.  
By postponing required withdrawals, pretax balances will continue to grow, which can lead to larger RMDs later, he said.
For lower future taxes, some advisors recommend so-called Roth conversions, which transfer pretax or nondeductible IRA money to a Roth IRA. The strategy can be useful during lower-income years because there’s an upfront tax on the converted balance.

Pretax IRAs are ‘much less desirable’ to inherit 

Bigger IRA balances could also cause tax issues for adult children who inherit their parents’ accounts, experts say.
“Recent changes to tax law have made pretax IRAs a much less desirable asset to inherit,” said Williams with Veratis Advisors.
Before the Secure Act of 2019, heirs could stretch IRA withdrawals over their lifetime, which reduced yearly taxes. Now, certain heirs, including most adult children, have a 10-year window to empty inherited IRAs.
The death of a parent often coincides with an heir’s highest earning years and taxes could “eat away a tremendous amount of an inherited pretax account,” Williams said.

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As president, Trump called for the elimination of the Education Department’s debt relief programs, including the popular Public Service Loan Forgiveness initiative, which benefits public employees such as members of the U.S. Armed Forces, first responders, public defenders, prosecutors and teachers.
He also wanted to slash the department’s budget, and his administration halted a regulation aimed at providing loan forgiveness to those defrauded by their schools.
Now, as he runs for president again, Trump seems poised to make even deeper cuts to financial aid programs for students.

Former President Donald Trump gives the keynote address at Turning Point Action’s “The People’s Convention” in Detroit, June 15, 2024.
Bill Pugliano | Getty Images

At a June 18 campaign rally in Racine, Wisconsin, former President Donald Trump slammed the Biden administration’s efforts to forgive student debt as “vile” and “not even legal.”
“The students aren’t buying it, by the way,” Trump said to a crowd of a couple of thousand people near Lake Michigan.

Trump also brought up the Supreme Court’s decision in 2023 to block President Joe Biden’s first attempt at broad student loan cancellation: “He got rebuked, and then he did it again.”
“It’s going to get rebuked again even more,” Trump said.
As president, Trump called for the elimination of the U.S. Department of Education’s existing loan relief programs, including the popular Public Service Loan Forgiveness initiative, which benefits public employees such as members of the U.S. Armed Forces, first responders, public defenders, prosecutors and teachers. He also wanted to slash the department’s budget, and his administration halted a regulation aimed at providing loan forgiveness to those defrauded by their schools.
Now, as he runs for president again, Trump seems poised to make even deeper cuts to financial aid programs for students. He has repeatedly attacked Biden’s loan relief policies, and he said in a campaign video in late 2023 that he wants to close the Education Department altogether.
Outstanding education debt in the U.S. exceeds $1.6 trillion, according to a 2022 report by the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service. Nearly 43 million people — or 1 in 6 adult Americans — carry student loans, the report said.

Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump holds a campaign rally at Crotona Park in the Bronx borough of New York City, May 23, 2024.
Brendan McDermid | Reuters

Project 2025, a set of proposals developed by The Heritage Foundation from more than 100 conservative organizations, says that “student loans and grants should ultimately be restored to the private sector.” (Some conservatives argue that private companies would do a better job lending to students than the federal government.) The proposal also calls for reducing affordable repayment options for borrowers and ending the loan forgiveness offered under these plans after a certain period.
“Trump will undo President Biden’s student loan forgiveness proposals,” said higher education expert Mark Kantrowitz. “He will relax rules on for-profit colleges, as part of deregulation efforts, and propose cuts, including possibly defunding the U.S. Department of Education.”

In an email response, Steven Cheung, a spokesman for the Trump campaign, referred CNBC to resources, including Trump’s campaign website and a range of media articles, in which sources frame student loan forgiveness as a boon to high earners and those who attended elite colleges. Less than 1% of federal student borrowers attended Ivy League colleges, according to an estimate by Kantrowitz.
Cheung did not answer specific questions from CNBC about what Trump plans to do regarding student debt and education if he is elected president.

Efforts against student loan relief already in play

Members of Trump’s party, meanwhile, have already stymied many of Biden’s efforts to deliver student loan relief. Most recently, lawsuits by Republican-led states, including Florida, Arkansas and Missouri, resulted in two federal judges halting implementation of key parts of the president’s new repayment plan, which dramatically reduced many borrowers’ monthly payments.
The preliminary injunctions prevented the Biden administration from forgiving any more debt under the Saving on a Valuable Education, or SAVE, plan, and from further reducing enrolled borrowers’ payments in July, as it planned. On Sunday, however, a federal appeals court granted the Education Department’s request to stay one of those injunctions, allowing the department to move ahead with lowering loan bills for SAVE enrollees.
Cody Gude, a social media consultant in Tampa, Florida, said he expects if Trump wins it will become more difficult and expensive for him to pay back his student loan debt of about $34,000.
“With inflation and student loans restarting, it’s become a lot,” said Gude, 35.
Gude said he was upset that Florida joined the lawsuit against the SAVE plan. He said he was looking forward to his student loan bill decreasing in July so he wouldn’t have to deliver groceries through Instacart anymore in addition to his regular job.
“It hurts that my home state doesn’t want to help its own citizens,” Gude said.
He said he worries that if elected Trump would roll back financial relief options for young people, and that he plans to vote for Biden.

Bringing ‘free market forces’ to student lending

Many voters welcome Trump’s stance on student loan relief and question the fairness of forgiving the loans of those who have benefited from a higher education.
Just 15% of Republicans find student loan forgiveness important, compared with 58% of Democrats, according to a national poll from mid-May by the University of Chicago Harris School of Public Policy and The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.
The Biden administration’s most recent student loan forgiveness proposal garnered a record number of public comments, with more than 148,000 people sharing their opinion.
“I call on the Biden administration to stop imposing an unjust burden on Americans who did not go to college or have paid off their student loan debt,” one person wrote.
Another commented: “I worked overtime and three part-time jobs when I pursued a graduate degree.”
“College is a personal choice that comes with many adult decisions,” the second person said. “It is not the federal government’s responsibility to pass those personal decisions off onto our country’s taxpayers.”
Elaine Parker, president of the Job Creators Network Foundation, a conservative advocacy group, said Biden was only forgiving student debt in an effort to buy votes.
“They don’t want to solve the problem,” Parker said. She said the root cause of the student loan crisis was skyrocketing college tuition.

Protesters from We The 45 Million project a message on the outside of the U.S. Department of Education building in Washington asking the department to cancel student debt, March 14, 2022.
Paul Morigi | Getty Images Entertainment | Getty Images

Parker said Congress needs to hold legislative hearings and bring in campus leaders to justify their tuition hikes, excessive administrative costs and degree programs that lack transparency on career outcomes.
She also said the private sector should play a bigger role in financing higher education.
“Why are the banks taken out of this?” Parker asked. “We’ve lost the free market forces in the college lending system.”

Concerns about Trump’s proposals

Higher education experts and consumer advocates expressed concern about the reforms floated by conservatives and Trump.
If the U.S. Department of Education were shut down, “there would be complete chaos,” Kantrowitz said.
Such a move would mean an end to Pell Grants, one of the biggest sources of financial aid available to college students, as well as federal student loans and work study opportunities, he said.
“K-12 education would be in disarray, too,” Kantrowitz added.
Meanwhile, transferring student lending from the government to private companies would only hurt consumers and worsen the crisis, said Aissa Canchola-Banez, political director at Protect Borrowers Action.
“Private lenders put their bottom line ahead of the needs of borrowers and that is a recipe for disaster,” Canchola-Banez said.

Kelly Lambers, of Cincinnati, said the issue of student loan debt will be top of mind for her in the November election. The social media strategist said her debt of around $97,000 makes it hard for her to cover her basic expenses.
She said the Biden administration’s SAVE plan brought her monthly bill on her federal student loans down to $31 from $100. She also pays $650 a month for her private student loans.
She said she plans to vote for Biden, in part because she believes she could lose that relief under Trump. More