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GAO warns student loan borrowers could be billed wrong amounts
If you have federal student loans, you trust the company managing your account to keep accurate records. You trust that your monthly bill reflects what you actually owe. You trust that when you call for help, the person on the other end gives you correct information.A new report from the U.S. Government Accountability Office suggests that trust may no longer be justified. The nonpartisan watchdog found that the Education Department quietly stopped verifying whether your loan servicer’s records are right.It also stopped monitoring the quality of phone calls between servicers and borrowers. The agency’s reason was straightforward: It did not have enough staff.The timing could not be worse. Major changes to federal student loan repayment arrive this summer. Millions of borrowers will need reliable guidance from these same servicers. Right now, no federal check exists to make sure they get it.The Education Department stopped checking your loan servicer’s accuracyThe GAO report, released March 11, 2026, documents a breakdown in how the federal government oversees student loan servicers. These are private companies that process your payments, maintain your account records, and advise you on repayment options.More Personal Finance:Why selling a home to your child for a dollar can backfireElon Musk says ‘universal high income’ is comingFTC, 21 states sue Uber over ‘shady’ subscription billingIn February 2025, the Office of Federal Student Aid stopped conducting quarterly assessments of servicer accuracy, CNBC reports. FSA also stopped reviewing recorded calls between servicers and borrowers. These assessments were required under contracts FSA signed with its five loan servicers in April 2024.The agency told GAO investigators it halted the reviews because it lacked staff capacity. The numbers support that claim. FSA began 2025 with 1,433 employees. By December, it had 777. That is a 46% reduction in a single year.What inaccurate loan servicer records could mean for your financesThis is not an abstract bureaucratic issue. If your loan servicer has the wrong information in your file, the consequences show up in your bank account.According to the GAO report (GAO-26-108534), inaccurate servicer records could lead to:Being placed in the wrong repayment statusGetting billed for incorrect amounts each monthHaving a refund delayed or never processedReceiving wrong information about repayment plans or forgiveness eligibilityThe servicer’s track record was already poor before oversight endedThe GAO reviewed servicer performance at the end of 2024. Four of the five federal loan servicers failed to meet the Education Department’s own accuracy standards. Two of those servicers received the maximum financial penalty allowed under their contracts.Loan servicers have long faced criticism for misleading borrowers or giving them bad advice. Rep. Bobby Scott of Virginia told NPR that borrowers risk overpaying or landing in the wrong program. He called the department’s failure to oversee servicers a dereliction of duty.The federal student loan system is about to get much more complicatedThe oversight gap is alarming on its own. It becomes far more dangerous, given what is coming next for federal student loans. Several major policy changes take effect in July 2026 under the One Big Beautiful Bill Act.The SAVE plan is officially deadThe Biden-era Saving on a Valuable Education repayment plan offered the lowest monthly payments of any federal program. On March 10, 2026, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 8th Circuit ordered SAVE’s permanent termination. More than 7 million borrowers are still enrolled. Their loans have been accruing interest since August 2025.New repayment plans are replacing familiar onesStarting in July, two brand-new repayment plans will launch. Several existing options, including Income-Contingent Repayment and Pay As You Earn, will be phased out by 2028. New borrowers will have far fewer choices than those who enrolled even a year ago.You will rely on your servicer to explain these new plans. The GAO warned that millions of people will need accurate information when they call. The Education Department has no way to verify that they are getting it.About 12 million student loan borrowers are in or near defaultAn estimated 12 million federal student loan borrowers are either in default or approaching it. Default carries serious consequences for your finances. The government can garnish your wages, seize your tax refund, and damage your credit score.Borrowers in this situation need accurate guidance on rehabilitation and repayment options. Without federal oversight of service quality, there is no guarantee they will receive it.
New student loan borrowers will have far fewer choices than those who enrolled even a year ago.andresr/Getty Images
The Education Department disagrees with the GAO’s recommendationGAO made one formal recommendation: resume the assessments of servicer accuracy and call quality.The Education Department declined. Richard Lucas, FSA’s acting chief operating officer, argued the agency uses other methods to evaluate servicers.Those methods include borrower satisfaction surveys, weekly executive check-in meetings, and daily performance reports from the servicers themselves.GAO says the alternative methods are not sufficientGAO concluded that these alternatives do not effectively replace direct accuracy assessments. The department’s own independent financial auditor reinforced this point. In January 2026, the auditor found the Education Department still had a material weakness in the reliability of its student loan data.Related: Federal student loan changes could raise payments for millionsThe Education Department pays servicers more than $1 billion per year to manage borrower accounts, according to higher education expert Mark Kantrowitz. GAO’s Melissa Emrey-Arras said that without accountability, the government risks overpaying for poor performance.How to protect yourself if your loan servicer has wrong recordsYou cannot control whether the Education Department resumes oversight. But you can take steps now to check your own records and reduce your exposure to servicer errors.Review your account on StudentAid.govLog in to StudentAid.gov and verify your loan balances, repayment status, and servicer assignment. Compare what the federal site shows against your servicer’s records. Flag any discrepancy immediately.Keep your own payment recordsDownload or take screenshots of your payment confirmations each month. If your servicer disputes a payment or applies it to the wrong loan, your own records become your evidence. Store them in a folder you can access quickly.Do not rely solely on your servicer for plan adviceNew repayment plans launch in July 2026. Use the Federal Student Aid Loan Simulator to estimate your payments under each plan before calling your servicer. This gives you a baseline to spot bad advice.File complaints when something goes wrongIf your servicer gives you wrong information or mishandles your account, file a complaint with the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and the Federal Student Aid Feedback Center. The more borrowers report problems, the harder it becomes for the department to justify skipping oversight.Watch for the July 2026 SAVE transition deadlineIf you are enrolled in SAVE, you must switch repayment plans. If you have Parent PLUS loans, consolidate them into a Direct Consolidation Loan before July 1, 2026. After that date, Parent PLUS borrowers lose access to income-driven repayment. Consolidation takes four to six weeks. Do not wait until June.The numbers behind the student loan oversight gapThe federal student loan portfolio is massive. Roughly 43 million Americans carry about $1.6 trillion in federal student loan debt, according to the Department of Education. Student debt is the second-largest category of consumer debt in the country, behind only mortgages.Five private companies service this entire portfolio. They process payments, field borrower questions, and maintain the records that determine how much you owe. When the federal government stops verifying those records, 43 million borrowers are left to catch errors on their own.Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, who requested the GAO investigation, said the administration has made it harder for borrowers to understand their obligations. Scott Buchanan, executive director of the Student Loan Servicing Alliance, countered that servicers monitor themselves because accurate records serve their financial interest.The GAO report undercuts that argument. Four of five servicers failed accuracy standards even while federal oversight was still active. Self-policing alone was not enough then. Without any external check at all, the risks to your account only grow.Related: SAVE Plan ends with bad news for student loan borrowers
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Why Clark Howard Was Wrong About Dollar Tree’s Price Changes
For a long time, I was a creature of habit at the Dollar Tree. I loved the simplicity of it: You’d grab a basket, toss in 15 items, and you knew exactly what you were paying at the register — fifteen bucks plus tax.
When they “broke the buck” and raised prices to $1.25, I’ll admit, I was upset. I thought they were losing the very thing that made them special. But after seeing the cumulative effects of inflation over the last few years, people are saying “enough is enough” and changing how they shop.
I have a confession to make: I was wrong. The leadership at Dollar Tree understood the marketplace much better than I did.
The New Math of Discount Shopping
Dollar Tree is following in the footsteps of Five Below. The “price is not the price” anymore. While you can still find those 50-cent greeting cards, items now range anywhere from $1.25 to $7.
At first, that sounds like a negative, but here is why it’s actually a win for you:
Better selection: By moving to a price “band” instead of a fixed price, they can offer a much wider variety of goods.
Higher quality: You aren’t limited to items that can only be manufactured for pennies.
Private label power: Their private label brands allow you to get the things you need (and a few things you just want) for much less than name-brand alternatives.
Hunting for Deals in High-End Neighborhoods
The most fascinating change isn’t just the price — it’s the location. Dollar Tree used to be relegated to older, struggling shopping centers. Now, they are a sought-after tenant for landlords in affluent areas.
I recently decided to “walk the floor” myself. I found a Dollar Tree in a very wealthy area where people were actually raving online about how clean and large it was. When I got there, I was blown away. It was fantastic. I noticed most shoppers weren’t just using the little handheld baskets anymore; they were pushing full shopping carts because the value proposition is so strong.
Final Thoughts
We are seeing a massive shift in how Americans shop to fight back against inflation. Whether it’s the “No Buy” movements or the explosion of the “used” market for clothing and household goods, we are all looking for ways to stretch a dollar.
If you haven’t been into a Dollar Tree lately because you were annoyed by the price hike, give it another look. Their shopper base is growing for a reason: It’s a great way to protect your wallet without sacrificing the items you need.
The post Why Clark Howard Was Wrong About Dollar Tree’s Price Changes appeared first on Clark Howard.
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Few Americans Have Perfect Credit Scores. Experts Say You Don’t Need One
A perfect credit score might sound like the ultimate financial goal. But a very small percentage of Americans actually have one.
According to a spokesperson for credit reporting agency Equifax, just 0.24% of U.S. adults with a credit file — roughly 2 out of every 1,000 people — have a perfect 850 credit score using the VantageScore 4.0 model. At the same time, about 53% of consumers fall within the model’s “super-prime” range of 720 to 850.
The top of most credit scoring scales, which typically range from 300 to 850, is reserved for folks with near-perfect credit habits, including years of on-time payments, low credit card balances and long, well-established credit histories. Consumers with perfect scores also tend to have an above-average number of credit cards, lower credit utilization rates and lower-than-average total debt, according to Experian, another major consumer credit reporting agency.
On average, Americans use about 28% of their available credit card limits, while people with 850 credit scores use just 4%, according to data from Experian.
Maintaining low balances matters because credit utilization accounts for roughly 30% of a FICO score — the credit scoring model used by about 90% of lenders in the U.S. — making it one of the most important factors in the credit-scoring formula. Lower utilization rates signal that a borrower isn’t heavily relying on credit, which lenders generally view as a sign of lower borrowing risk.
Perfect scorers also have no delinquent accounts on their credit reports, meaning they’ve consistently paid their bills on time. By comparison, about 4.8% of U.S. household debt is currently in some stage of delinquency, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York’s latest household debt and credit report.
Why you don’t need a perfect 850 credit score
Reaching the maximum credit score is rare — and financial experts say consumers don’t need to chase perfection to access the best borrowing terms.
“It is not necessary to have a perfect credit score to qualify for the best rates when you’re applying for funding, such as a personal loan, a new credit card or even a mortgage,” Leslie H. Tayne, debt expert and founder of Tayne Law Group, tells Money. “A lot of the time, if the consumer has great credit — within the 780 bracket or even higher — they’ll qualify for the best rate a lender offers.”
The average U.S. credit score is about 715, according to FICO data. Although 715 is generally considered “good” as opposed to “very good” or “exceptional,” many borrowers are already within the range lenders typically reserve for their best rates.
“If you look at the best deals by FICO score, you need a 720 to get the best deals on auto loans and 760 to get the best deals on mortgages,” says John Ulzheimer, a credit card expert formerly with FICO and Equifax.
Still, borrowers should aim to improve their credit whenever possible. A higher score can provide a buffer if your credit profile changes — for example, if you temporarily carry higher credit card balances — and help keep your score high enough so you still qualify for favorable rates.
The biggest mistakes people make when trying to improve their credit
For consumers trying to boost their credit scores, experts say the biggest improvements usually come from focusing on long-term habits, not quick fixes. Think: debt repayment, not balance transfers, Tayne says.
Another common misstep is closing older credit accounts, which can actually hurt a borrower’s scores because it may reduce available credit and increase credit utilization.
“It’s ironic in some ways that closing a credit account or even paying off a large revolving debt, like a mortgage or car, can actually hurt your score, but it’s true,” Tayne explains.
If a credit card is no longer useful to you, she says it may be better to keep the account open rather than closing it outright — especially if it doesn’t carry an annual fee.
“The benefit of keeping it open would have to outweigh that fee,” she adds. “However, having a card that you don’t use can contribute to a better debt-to-income ratio as well as your credit utilization percentage.”
Borrowers should also be wary of questionable advice online.
“Improving your credit is not a mystery,” says Ulzheimer. “When I was at FICO, we would tell people the same thing until we were blue in the face: Make your payments on time, stay out of excessive credit card debt and apply for credit sparingly. Lather, rinse, repeat.”
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