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Paying back your student loans just got harder

By RG Richardson
August 9, 2026 1 Min Read
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Paying back your student loans just got harder

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If you need a little help paying for four years of beer pong higher education, getting it could be more challenging. New rules that began yesterday will cap the amount you can borrow and increase some monthly repayments. Here’s some of what’s changing for borrowing: Parents borrowing on behalf of undergraduate students will be limited to $20,000 annually and to $65,000 total. Graduate school borrowing is capped at $100,000 over the course of the program, down from $138,500, but the limit for those pursuing professional degrees, like medicine or law, was raised from $20,500 to $50,000 per year. The Education Department’s plan to exclude some professional fields from the increase, like nursing and accounting, is on hold pending legal challenges. A bad RAP? For repayment, new borrowers must choose between the Tiered Standard Plan and the new Repayment Assistance Plan (RAP)—monthly payments for the latter will be 1%–10% of a borrower’s income. Experts say borrowers will pay more under RAP than similar income-based repayment plans. The approximately 7 million people enrolled in the SAVE plan, which expired yesterday, must switch to RAP or another plan within 90 days. On Tuesday, a judge blocked the Trump administration from implementing a rule that would deny public service workers access to student loan forgiveness if their employers had a “substantial illegal purpose.” The challengers argued it would allow Trump to target groups he disfavors, like those that support immigration rights and transgender ⁠healthcare.
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