Sweeping changes to federal student loans included in President Donald Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill are taking effect on Wednesday, with implications for millions of borrowers.
Starting on July 1, new student loan borrowers will face a narrowed set of repayment options consisting of two freshly launched plans, and borrowing for professional and graduate students and parents of college students will be capped at lower amounts.
Millions of current enrollees in a Biden-era loan repayment program will also begin receiving notice from federal student loan servicers that they must select a new plan to switch to within 90 days.
Here’s what current and future borrowers should know about the changes, and how they could be affected.
Under the One Big Beautiful Bill, loan limits for graduate and professional school students and parent borrowers will be tightened for those enrolling after Wednesday.
Graduate students, who were previously allowed to borrow up to the cost of attendance at a college or university under the Grad PLUS loan program, will now have their borrowing capped at $20,500 per year, and no more than $100,000 over the course of their lifetime. Limits will also be tightened for professional students, to $50,000 per year and $200,000 in their lifetime.
Parents of college students enrolling in the Parent PLUS loan program will also face lower loan caps. The program, like Grad PLUS, previously permitted parents to take loans up to the cost of attendance; that number will now be $20,000 annually and $65,000 total per student.
There is also now a lifetime loan limit of $257,000 for anyone else who receives a federal student loan on or after July 1.
Current borrowers will be grandfathered into the prior limits, allowing them to continue borrowing up to those levels under current programs for three academic years or until their program finishes.
For those taking out federal student loans on or after Wednesd
