Student loan forgiveness, tech layoffs, big money stories from 2023

Student loan borrowers spent the first half of the year hoping to see their balances reduced, if not erased, by the end of the summer. Many spent the second half of the year scrambling to figure out how they were going to resume making payments. 

By the end of the third quarter, borrowers wound up with a total of $1.6 trillion in debt, according to New York Fed data. September marked the first month federal student loans would accrue interest since 2020, and borrowers had to resume payments in October. 

Though President Joe Biden’s effort to relieve up to $20,000 per borrower was blocked by the Supreme Court in June, his administration has still granted forgiveness to 3.6 million Americans through improvements to Public Service Loan Forgiveness, income-driven repayment and disability discharge programs.

When average rates on 30-year fixed-rate mortgages hit 8% in October, those already exhausted with the state of the housing market may have seen their stress hit new levels, too. The national average hasn’t hit 8% since 2000.

Just three years earlier, in October 2020, rates were sitting comfortably below 3%. But as inflation rose throughout 2021 and 2022, the Fed stepped in to tame it by increasing its target rate, driving up the cost to borrow money.

As inflation slowed, the Fed was able to pause its rate hikes and as of November, mortgage rates have crept back down below 7%. Though mortgage rates and home prices remain higher than what many would-be buyers would like to see, rates could continue to come down next year, as the Fed is expected to start cutting.

The 12-month consumer price index, which tracks the change in prices across all items, continued to fall nearly every month through 2023, landing at 3.1% in November. It’s not quite at the Fed’s target of about 2% yet, but it is down from 6.4% in January of this year, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. 

While they’re…