Congress ends Grad Plus and caps federal graduate student loans

4 min read

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.