Congress ends Grad Plus and caps federal graduate student loans

Congress replaced the uncapped Grad Plus program with fixed annual and lifetime limits on federal graduate loans effective July 1, setting annual limits of $20,500 for graduate students and $50,000 for professional students and lifetime caps of $100,000 and $200,000. The article links uncapped federal credit since 2006 to rising tuition and program growth: graduate costs more than tripled between 2000 and 2020, median Grad Plus balances rose from $21,800 to $57,800 between 2013 and 2023, and graduate students accounted for 47 percent of disbursed federal loans. The author argues caps help but program-level accountability is still needed to change university incentives.

Congress capped federal graduate loan amounts starting July 1.