Day: November 8, 2025

• The Department of Education resumed processing student-loan forgiveness for borrowers on income-based repayment.
• Student-loan borrowers said they were unsure whether the relief would ever arrive.
• One borrower who received forgiveness said she can now put more money toward retirement.

A vacation might finally be on the horizon for Tammy Stinson.

That’s because after nearly 25 years of payments, Stinson’s $70,000 student-loan balance has finally been wiped out.

“I feel like I might be free now,” Stinson, 52, told Business Insider. “I can actually live my life and hopefully retire before I’m 90.”

Stinson’s student-loan forgiveness is a result of meeting her qualifying payments on an income-based repayment plan. IBR plans offer borrowers monthly payments based on their income, with forgiveness after 20 or 25 years, depending on when they first took out the loan.

President Donald Trump’s Department of Education paused IBR processing over the summer, citing ongoing litigation regarding repayment plans, which delayed relief for borrowers. In late September, however, borrowers who met the payment threshold began receiving emails from the department notifying them that they qualified for relief, and servicers began zeroing out borrowers’ balances in mid-October.

Stinson, who now works in consulting in Pennsylvania, said that after graduating with her bachelor’s degree in economics in 2001 from St. Ambrose University, she struggled to find a well-paying job while raising her children. Her income fluctuated, and while she made her student-loan payments, they largely went toward the accumulating interest on her balance. She postponed buying a house with her husband until two years ago because she did not want to take on more debt.

“Having kids when I was younger, and then finishing school, and then just starting out feeling like I was so in debt, I just felt like it was hopeless at some points,” Stinson said.

Not only is the loan forgiveness long-awaited for Stinson — it came at a critical time. A 2021 provision of the American Rescue Plan that made student-debt relief tax-free is set to expire in January 2026, and Stinson said she’s relieved that she won’t face a big tax bill. The Department of Education also said that it considers the “effective” date of the relief as the day that a borrower reaches their final payment. So even if their relief is not processed until next year, borrowers would not face taxes because of the 2025 effective dates.

The first version of the IBR plan was created by Congress in 2007 and took effect in 2009. An updated version of the plan took effect in 2014. The plans were intended to make student-loan payments affordable; borrowers who enrolled in IBR before July 1, 2014, had payments that were 15% of their discretionary income with forgiveness after 25 years, while those who enrolled after July 1, 2014, had payments that were 10% of their discretionary income with forgiveness after 20 years.

Stinson said she can now put more money into her retirement accounts without having to worry about her student-loan payments.

“This has been the best week of my life,” she said.

‘It was immense relief’

Brad Hill, 55, was expecting student-loan forgiveness — he just wasn’t sure when it would arrive. He has been making nearly $400 payments on student loans he used to finance his 1993 undergraduate and 2004 graduate degrees in business and engineering from the University of California, Berkeley, and the University of Southern California. He now works in the energy sector. While he said he was able to make his payments consistently, he felt there was no end in sight — especially after he thought he had reached his payment threshold in 2024.

He said he started feeling more hopeful once advocacy groups filed lawsuits against the Department of Education over stalled repayment plan processing, which could result in borrowers facing larger tax bills next year.

“There were a bunch of us in this category, frustrated and out of our minds with anxiety, whether what we were eligible for was actually going to wind up being a taxable event,” said Hill, who’s based in California.

Hill said he started with about $86,000 in student debt, and despite making qualifying payments on the IBR plan, he said it was “very, very frustrating” that the relief was stalled.

“I can’t imagine a more unsettling experience in terms of watching the wheels of federal policy turn and grind and seize up and leave millions and millions of people in an extraordinarily frustrating lurch,” Hill said.

At the time Hill took out his student loans, the interest rate was around 3%, and he said he viewed it as “a pretty fair deal economically” and has been able to use both of his degrees in his career. Still, both Hill and Stinson said that there should be better education on the impact of taking out student loans, especially since forgiveness is not guaranteed. Undergraduate students who took out federal loans for this school year would face an interest rate of 6.39%.

Stinson, for example, said that her son decided to go to trade school instead of college, and she’s happy he made the decision because he can avoid student loans.

“I really felt like I needed to go to college to get a better job, but then it didn’t seem like it was worth it until the last maybe 10 years because it just seemed like it was so slow for me to get better jobs and get better income overall,” Stinson said.

The Department of Education said it could take several months for servicers to process relief, so more borrowers might see their balances zero out as the year comes to a close.

Student-loan forgiveness could also be harder to achieve in the coming years. The department is working to implement a repayment overhaul that Trump codified in his “big beautiful” spending bill, which includes the creation of two income-driven repayment plans with less-generous terms than the existing ones, including forgiveness after 30 years.

Hill is glad the saga is finally over.

“It was immense relief that this suddenly kicked in,” Hill said.

• Meta product managers use vibe coding to quickly prototype apps for CEO Mark Zuckerberg.
• AI tools like Metamate and Devmate enable rapid product development at Meta.
• Vibe coding skills are now highly valued in tech, lowering barriers for non-engineers.

Meta’s product managers aren’t waiting on engineers to turn ideas into demos. Instead, they are vibe coding to design prototype apps themselves and presenting them directly to CEO Mark Zuckerberg.

“PMs are actually vibe coding products, and we’re showing them to Zuck and leadership, and it’s allowing us to iterate and explore the space really fast,” said Joseph Spisak, a product director in Meta’s Superintelligence Labs (MSL), onstage at the TechEquity AI Summit in Sunnyvale, California, on Friday.

Vibe coding, a term originating in developer communities, refers to AI-assisted coding using instructions provided in natural language.

“We can literally vibe code products in a matter of hours, days, and explore the space,” Spisak added.

Spisak described Meta’s “internal systems” as powerful enough for non-engineers to adjust interfaces on the fly, allowing developers to “change colors and change ideas.”

The remarks shed new light on how Meta, like the rest of Silicon Valley, is reorganizing product development around AI assistants. Meta uses at least two: Metamate, a ChatGPT-style bot trained on internal data, and Devmate, a coding assistant that incorporates multiple large language models, including those from rivals like Anthropic, to speed up programming.

Speeding up the development process and embracing vibe coding have become top priorities at MSL, which Meta formed in June as it races against other AI rivals. One memo from late September said that Meta’s existing systems, designed for billions of users and giant engineering teams, take “too long” to deploy changes and are “not conducive to vibe coding,” making it harder for small, fast-moving AI teams to experiment.

Similar transformations are underway across Silicon Valley. Google has spent the past year pushing workers to integrate AI into every stage of product development. Last year, Google CEO Sundar Pichai said that more than a quarter of Google’s code is generated by AI before being reviewed by humans. At Microsoft, executives have told managers that “using AI is no longer optional,” according to an internal memo obtained by Business Insider.

Meta is making similar internal pushes toward AI. The company tracks employees’ AI usage through dashboards, sets adoption targets, and even runs an internal game called Level Up that rewards staff who hit AI milestones, Business Insider reported last month.

Vibe coding skills have also become a recruiting priority across the tech industry. Firms like Reddit and DoorDash now list experience with AI coding tools like Cursor and Bolt as desired skills, according to a Business Insider report, and at least one Y Combinator startup calls vibe coding “non-negotiable” for new hires.

“We are getting to the point where the barriers are really low right now,” Spisak told the audience, adding that even his 11-year-old daughter now vibe codes new environments to play in Roblox

“This is what I tell PMs at Meta and other places where I mentor PMs,” Spisak said. “Don’t be afraid to get your hands dirty.”

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• Thanksgiving travel could be chaotic this year, especially if the government shutdown persists.
• Travel pros say there are steps you can take to minimize the chances of your plans getting derailed.
• Travelers should monitor alerts from airlines and flight trackers.

Thanksgiving weekend is typically one of the busiest times to travel, and thanks to multiple factors, this year could devolve into chaos.

Travel companies and federal officials have already warned that if the government shutdown continues, travelers could face a continuation of reduced flights, as well as the always possible risk of disruptive weather.

For those who are still planning to travel, travel professionals advise taking certain steps to maximize your chances of a smooth experience.

You can’t control the weather, the airlines, or whether the government reopens, so here are some tips on things you can control.

Some days are better to fly than others

If you haven’t booked travel yet or have flexibility on your reservation, you could consider rescheduling for a less busy day, Sean Cudahy, an aviation reporter at The Points Guy, told Business Insider.

The Sunday after Thanksgiving, for instance, tends to be the busiest travel day, so avoiding it altogether could be a good idea. Thanksgiving day is often actually a good day to fly, as it’s typically far less busy than the Tuesday or Wednesday before, he said.

Cudahy said early morning flights are often less likely to be delayed than those later in the day. He also recommended booking nonstop flights, as layovers tend to increase the likelihood of a disruption. However, if you do need a connecting flight, avoid tight connection times.

Summer Hull, the senior director of content at The Points Guy, said she would seriously consider taking the train or driving if you’re within driving distance.

“If I were only going to be looking at an 8, 10, or 12-hour drive instead of dealing with this stress, I would strongly consider that right now,” she said.

Be proactive about communication and act quickly

When there are widespread travel disruptions, it’s often the case that travelers who act the fastest are rewarded, according to Hull.

In order to stay as up-to-date as possible, Hull said travelers should opt-in to airline alerts and make sure they have their airlines’ app. As they get closer to their day of departure, she recommends checking sites like FlightAware, where you may get alerted to a change in your flight even before your airline does.

“At a minimum, just opt into all the information notices and tracking, and I would check every day right now,” she said, adding, “the situations are so fluid.”

If there is a change in your flight, you should act quickly, she said. That means don’t just stand in a long line and wait around for an airline employee to help you. Be proactive and try to manage your own travel through the app or website. If you encounter any issues, call customer service while you’re still in line.

“This will be one of those situations where those who move quickest have the most options,” she said.

She also said you should keep an eye on TSA wait times. While the actual TSA app is not running as usual because of the shutdown, some airports give estimated wait times, so you should check with them.

Consider getting TSA PreCheck or Clear.

If you’ve been on the fence about enrolling in TSA PreCheck or Clear, now might be the time.

Hull said they came in handy for some travelers in Houston last weekend, when TSA wait times at George Bush Intercontinental Airport were over three hours.

“They’re not a guarantee when everything goes haywire,” Hull said, “but even in Houston, they were helping people get through faster in most cases.”

TSA PreCheck applications can take anywhere from several to 60 days to be approved, but most get approved within 3 to 5 days. Travelers can enroll in Clear at the airport on the same day they are traveling.

Check your travel insurance policy closely

Hull and Cudahy recommend booking your travel with a credit card that offers travel protections, such as the Chase Sapphire card. Some cards with travel protections will compensate you for hotels, food, and activities that you miss out on when your travel is delayed or canceled.

Rick Bagnell, vice president of business development at the insurance and consulting company Risk Strategies Company, said that travel insurance could also provide additional help to travelers who face disruptions over the Thanksgiving holiday.

However, if you did not purchase the insurance prior to October 1, when the government shutdown began, it may not cover delays related to the government shutdown, since it would likely not fall under an unforeseen circumstance.

Bagnell said that if you do have insurance, you should ensure you fully understand what your plan covers and what to do if you encounter issues.

“What they really need to do is reach out to the policy or the agents and just make sure they understand their contracts and coverage for trip delay, and the steps to take if they get into that situation,” he said.

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