Trump’s Student Loan Rules Turn 2026 Into Payday's Season of Pain

Photo by Masjid Pogung Dalangan on Unsplash

KEY POINTS

•Starting July 2026, Trump's 2024 'big beautiful' spending law begins rolling out new repayment plans and borrowing limits.
•The SAVE plan will be eliminated, forcing 7 million borrowers to choose costlier options or lose forgiveness benefits.
•Graduate and professional students face borrowing caps of $20,500 and $50,000 yearly respectively, excluding some pricy programs like nursing.

Starting July 2026, Trump’s ironically dubbed 'big beautiful' spending law hits student loans with a wrecking ball of fixes nobody asked for. Goodbye SAVE plan, RIP Grad PLUS, hello $20,500 yearly borrowing cap for grad students and a $50,000 seasonal special for professionals who play doctor, lawyer, or dentist. The standard repayment plan’s 10-25 year set payments hug your original balance like an uncomfortable ex, while the Repayment Assistance Plan (RAP, because who doesn’t love acronyms that literally mean 'help me') makes you pay 1%-10% of your income with a daring minimum $10 monthly appetizer—final forgiveness comes after 30 years (yes, 30). If you grabbed loans pre-July 2026, congratulations! Until 2028, you get a choice. Post that and you're stuck choosing between RAP or standard. Meanwhile, 7 million in the SAVE plan face an existential crunch as applications freeze like your social life during finals, also blocking 450,000 hopefuls from even applying. And as a cherry on top, nursing and some fancy programs got snubbed by new definitions, despite having bills bigger than your rent and college debt combined. Truly a Trumpian masterpiece in the art of shrinking options while pretending it’s progress.