New federal student loan caps imposed by the Trump administration will cost nursing and medical students thousands of dollars more in the fall.
Last summer, President Donald Trump signed his One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which, in part, placed limits on federal student loans for graduate and professional degrees.
Starting in July, new graduate students will be allowed to borrow up to $20,500 in federal student loans per year, and new “professional” students will be allowed to borrow up to $50,000 annually. Before Trump’s bill, graduate students could borrow up to the full cost of attendance.
White House spokesperson Liz Huston told The Independent, “Fiscal responsibility is a top priority for the Trump Administration, which is why the One Big Beautiful Bill Act put commonsense caps on federal loans for graduate programs to drive down bloated tuition costs and help reduce student loan debt.”
But the new policy will leave students to find another way to finance thousands of dollars in education expenses that federal student loans won’t cover.
An aspiring nurse anesthetist will need to borrow, on average, $38,200 a year for their master’s degree, and with the $20,500 annual cap on federal student loans for graduate students, the student would need to find a way to cover the extra $17,700, according to a New York Times report published Wednesday.
A student in a master’s program for a physician assistant job will need to borrow $45,000 annually, on average, meaning they will need to cover an extra $24,500 per year if they take out the full federal student loan limit, according to The NYT’s analysis of Department of Education data from 2020 to 2023.
While the cap is higher for “professional” students — a title the Trump administration has given to the likes of doctors, dentists and lawyers — federal student loans still won’t cover the total expenses of some programs for these occupations.
For a dentistry program, a student will need to borrow, on average, $83,000 per year — $33,000 over the federal student loan cap, according to The NYT’s analysis. A medicine program, where students borrow an average of $56,500 per year, will leave them to pick up an extra $6,500 annually that isn’t covered by federal student loans, the analysis shows.
While some students will be affected by the loan caps, The NYT noted that there are many degrees where a majority of colleges have average loans that are well under the new limit.
The Education Department has defended the new loan caps, saying it was unrestrained borrowing that prompted institutions to raise their tuition.
Ellen Keast, the Education Department’s press secretary for higher education, told The Independent, “The Trump Administration is reining in the out-of-control student loan borrowing bonanza that encouraged institutions to inflate tuition and allowed students to take on absurd levels of debt, sometimes borrowing beyond their means to repay.”
“If colleges and universities want to remain competitive, we expect them to lower tuition, deliver programs that prepare students for the workforce, and make higher education more affordable for families,” Keast added.
The Independent has reached out to the White House for comment.
While lower tuition would surely help out future students, there are students right now deciding whether to attend graduate school in the fall, and if so, how to pay for it. That may mean taking out private loans with potentially higher interest rates, if students can even be approved for one.
“The end effect is to essentially make it so that graduate school is only accessible to students from the wealthiest families,” Jennifer Zhang, an analyst at Protect Borrowers, told The NYT.
Protect Borrowers and The Century Foundation released a report last month which claimed over 40 percent of Americans, including a disproportionate amount of low-income students and students of color, are locked out of the traditional private student loan market.
The Education Department has also highlighted several institutions offering scholarships and other student aid that could help bridge the gap between what is covered by federal student loans and the remaining amount of what students owe.
The Santa Clara University School of Law has committed to offering a new scholarship to all students joining its J.D. programs in the fall.
The $16,000 scholarship awarded to every full-time student in next year’s class was created to ensure those students have “access to the funds they need to cover the cost of tuition for Santa Clara Law despite new federal loan limits,” the school said in a news release last September.
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