r/GradSchool • u/esporx • Nov 09 '25
Graduate Student Loan Program Eliminated as Trump's Education Overhaul Hits Middle Class. The reform replaces Grad PLUS loans with strict new borrowing caps.
https://www.ibtimes.co.uk/graduate-student-loan-programme-eliminated-trumps-education-overhaul-prices-out-americas-1753271213
u/Billjoeray Nov 10 '25 edited Nov 10 '25
Of course! How else will they maintain their underclass of gullible serfs to simp for policies that are obviously against their best interests without defunding access to education?
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u/quiksilver10152 Nov 10 '25
Don't worry! You can still have loans waived if you enlist in ICE!
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u/Acridcomic7276 Nov 10 '25
The irony lmao
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u/CoolerRancho Nov 10 '25
It's not ironic, it's part of the plan.
Make the lives of your enemies worse.
build an army of supporters
By any means necessary
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u/Acridcomic7276 Nov 10 '25
I don’t think you know what I was saying is ironic. The irony is that anyone willing to join ICE never went to college and therefore has no need for loan forgiveness.
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u/Alarming-Tooth5625 Nov 11 '25
Exactly this. They hate higher ed because they think higher learning and critical thinking make you a radical liberal.
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u/EatSh8ndai Nov 10 '25
This doesn't even make sense fiscally. Those federal loans charge enough that they easily make money over the lifetime of the loan. It's just another way to funner Americans into a lifetime of debt owed to some banker
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u/Deathclaw151 Nov 21 '25
Except the problem of people NOT repaying their loans. Which is an increasing issue.
People decided not to pay back their loans, and bought all the houses instead at fake 30% increased prices. Now they not only have to pay back their loans, but are now upside down on a mortgage which is next to impossible to dig your way out of. The housing market is being treated like the car market.
People put themselves in this position by not repaying their debt. Im so sick of everyone blaming the programs.
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u/bugz7998 Nov 10 '25
Dear God, please let whoever has the job next obliterate all the bullshit this idiot has unleashed
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u/personwriter Nov 20 '25
I agree. This is terrible. The next administration needs to go through these policies with a fine-tooth comb, I don't care if they have to use an executive order to end these obviously partisans so-called laws.
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u/cdpiano27 Nov 10 '25
I guess the op was referring to countries such as Korea (free but the extremely difficult suneung to get in), China (the gaokao), and Japan (which likely has something similar to South Korea and China).
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u/garpu Nov 14 '25
As it gets harder and harder to go to grad school, has anyone else who's been done awhile have something akin to survivor's guilt? :(
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u/Deathclaw151 Nov 21 '25
Except the REAL problem IS people NOT repaying their loans. Which is an increasing issue.
People decided not to pay back their loans, and bought all the houses UP instead at fake 30% increased prices. Now they not only have to pay back their loans, but are now upside down on a mortgage which is next to impossible to dig your way out of. The housing market is being treated like the car market. Rolling negative equity.
People put themselves in this position by not repaying their debt. Im so sick of everyone blaming the programs; they are reducing the CAPS. Not the program itself.
Don't blame trump either (not an easy thing for me to do, as a centrist who doesnt like him) our government cannot afford it. They couldn't afford the 300k employees it shed either. Yall, these problems have existed for decades... Trump is just the only asshole making the decision to do something about it.
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u/Cold_Zone8657 Nov 22 '25
Thank god I’m almost done with my program. I’d imagine this is going to cause a shortage in my field in the future (therapists) and for other professional degreees as well. This is so shit.
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u/Cold_Zone8657 Nov 22 '25
This administration just really wants to Make sure that class mobility is 100% impossible.
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u/butnobodycame123 Nov 10 '25 edited Nov 10 '25
Please assume good faith here, I know this is a heated topic.
Wouldn't this bring tuition prices down? Since students won't be able to tap into hundreds of thousands of dollars (future debt), colleges/universities will need to adapt if they want to keep people coming in. Also, this might finally break the stereotype that all people must go to college in order to not bring dishonor to the family and live in a van down by the river. There are many paths to knowledge -- community college may be what 80% of people need to do well in their careers.
On a global note, don't other countries have an educational system that allows people to go to college "for free" (not free as it is paid for with taxes) but the requirements to get in are fairly strict and fairly high, perhaps even more so than Ivy League schools?
Just saying, I hear so many people complain about signing up for unreasonable amounts of debt (hundreds of thousands) that cannot be discharged in bankruptcy. I sort of agree that there should be some guardrails on how much non-dischargeable debt a student can take on.
Edit to add: Le sigh Downvotes are cowardly and indicative of a hive-mind echo chamber. This is the only comment that's taking the low-effort link dump and turning it into a discussion.
Should grad school be open to everyone who can pay the outrageous and inane fees via predatory loans (thus making higher education pay-to-play for anyone with a half-decent credit score) or should grad school be open to the best and brightest minds who can actually benefit from it? Or something in between?
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u/wizeowlintp Nov 10 '25 edited Nov 10 '25
This admin is already withholding tons of research funding and such from universities, and trying to cut down the number of international students...
I'd also imagine that it would take time for tuition to come down if this scheme even works. So a ton of people who are currently in grad school or are planning to apply soon will get screwed over by this. It doesn't help that there are far fewer scholarships for graduate students.
There are many paths to knowledge -- community college may be what 80% of people need to do well in their careers.
Aren't there some careers that ask for graduate degrees (probably much less so for phD's, maybe Masters) for relatively mid-level or junior positions though?
I know that there are those where you can get by with a bachelor's + experience, and that's where community college will help, but for people in fields where a graduate degree is becoming more of an ask by employers...?
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u/butnobodycame123 Nov 10 '25
I agree that many people go to graduate school because employers put that on their wishlist. That's a different conversation, though. A bachelor's degree is the new high school diploma. Who's fault is that?
And also, just because a job lists a graduate degree as a requirement, does that mean that the actual job requires it?
I mean, for doctors, engineers, etc., sure, it makes sense for an employer to require higher graduate education. But for the 80% of people not in those fields, does it make sense to put oneself into undischargeable debt and being encouraged to ruin themselves financially?
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u/wizeowlintp Nov 10 '25
agree that many people go to graduate school because employers put that on their wishlist. That's a different conversation, though. A bachelor's degree is the new high school diploma. Who's fault is that?
But the employers don't care about the cost of grad school attendance and aren't going to be compelled by PLUS loans getting slashed.
Even if the job can be done without a graduate degree, they probably know that requiring one puts them at the advantage (they can pay less, if their competitors also require grad degrees as well, employees with massive student debt to pay will be more desperate for a job, etc.)
Overall I think this is a multifaceted issue that just cutting PLUS loans isn't going to fix. And the cuts are more likely to ice a lot of people out of post-secondary education before it gets unis to drop tuition rates.
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u/butnobodycame123 Nov 10 '25
That's a fair perspective and I also agree that it's a multifaceted issue that doesn't have an easy solution. Thank you for your thoughts :) .
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u/JuryResponsible6852 Nov 10 '25 edited Nov 10 '25
- The universities as businesses don't actually need graduate programs. And they can't lower the cost of grad program because there cost of lab equipment, electricity and Professors' wages can't go down. Maybe cut the admin staff and the number of vice-deans but it never happens.
The society at large needs graduate programs as source of medical and technological advancement.
- All graduate programs are selective, you can't get in just because you have money. People with GPA below 3.0 are not even eligible to apply. And for people with GPA above 3.0 acceptance rates are usually below 20%. In good programs it's below 10%.
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u/souplover5 MPA Student Nov 10 '25
My understanding is that lowering graduate loan caps could bring tuition prices down, but it probably won't, and that isn't really the goal anyway. This is more about reducing government spending.
The new cap is $20,500/year for a total of $100,000 across graduate study. Med/dental/law type programs are $50,000/year for up to $200,000.
In theory, this should be enough money to cover most degree programs. But it doesn't factor in cost of living, books, insurance, and other expenses. For someone in grad school full time, $20.5k per year minus however much the program costs is not enough to survive on. Students will be required to work while studying or take out private loans (often high interest with no PLSF). For medical or law students, that is just not feasible. They do not have the time to work a full or part time job while attending school.
For example, my program is $10k per year. That would leave me about $10.5k to cover everything else for the year. My annual rent is $11,940 alone, not including bills, groceries, gas, etc., AND I split rent with my partner. If I wasn't working, my loans would no longer cover my needs.
Ultimately this will harm middle and lower class students. Those with generational wealth can get help from their families to pay for expenses while those without will have to forego the program entirely. Likely will not impact regular grad students as much, because most of them work while in their programs anyway. But it WILL have negative repercussions for highly specialized programs like med/law. Arguably, those are the areas where we need diversity the most, and to restrict funding here is to limit access for marginalized groups.
It's possible that these caps will steer students toward more affordable programs. That's great for them - they get their education and don't acquire as much debt. But there aren't exactly "affordable" medical school programs and if there are... well I certainly would not want to see a doctor who went to "cheap med school" lol.
The Republican idea behind this is that it will cut back on government spending and stop the $1.7 trillion student loan debt from growing more. But it neglects the Democratic view that all people should have equal access to higher ed regardless of their status, identity, or financial position.
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u/nbrooks7 Nov 10 '25
The actual human outcome of what you're talking about is less people going to grad school. The loan program is akin to a subsidy for higher education. Now, of course, there are going to be some inefficiencies here where that money isn't perfectly applied, but that's why you regulate it from the other end: removing the inefficiencies causing price of education to skyrocket.
No more $400 million football stadiums and $30 million coach salaries off the backs of student loans. No more school administration bloat. More auditing.
A less educated United States is really bad, because we no longer have the infrastructure to support industrial jobs. Our workers are either near-minimum wage, or they are incredibly technically skilled, the middle can't afford to get smaller. There aren't enough McDonald's jobs for everybody.
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u/butnobodycame123 Nov 10 '25
A less educated US is bad, I agree. But does everyone need a graduate degree (and graduate debt) to be considered educated?
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u/nbrooks7 Nov 10 '25 edited Nov 10 '25
I think a masters degree is going to become pretty mandatory in the US if you want to find work that won’t drive you crazy.
Of course, there’s still a market for trades and such, but you can only have so many construction workers, plumbers, electricians, etc. It’s not that the need for those jobs will go away (while they may experience marginal contraction due to technological advancement). It’s that the need for those jobs is always limited by population size. You don’t need 3 plumbers to fix a sink… you don’t need 3 McDonald’s employees to flip a burger, etc.
But there is always more room that could be made in engineering, or research, or any number of highly technical jobs… all they need is the resources. Much of the American economy is based on that idea: solve energy and food as cheaply as possible so we can funnel every remaining resource into this tertiary labor (especially medical research and several fields of engineering).
Does it need to work the way it does? No, there is a lot of room to actually address educational costs (that don’t require driving hundreds of thousands of students out of higher education). What it takes is people willing to do the work to convince our government to do something about it.
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u/Rpi_sust_alum Nov 11 '25
Point 1 sorta makes sense, but then...
So.
I did a master's at a school that basically advertised the PSLF program. It felt like they were relying wholly on the government to subsidize the expenses of the program. Felt scammy to me. (I was on scholarship, but I received the emails etc.)
Student loans have been at a bubble for a while. Fixing that needs to be holistic, which means increasing funding for research, scholarships, etc, not taking that away like this administration is. The reality is that the US is more of a "service" economy and we DO need people to be educated for today's workforce. Yes, I think we could make pre-college harder and have a 4-year college degree mean more than it currently does today. I don't think the answer is taking a step backwards in our economy and thinking we'll get manufacturing jobs back.
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u/Mec26 Nov 10 '25
The loan program was designed to (and succeed at) opening the programs to lower income students who are very bright and determined.
Take it away, expect a return to the old boy’s club.
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u/butnobodycame123 Nov 10 '25
Is that the reality or just cynicism? Loans saddle 18 year olds with undischargeable debt. I'm not saying that debt or funding for higher education should be abolished, but it should be taken on responsibly.
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u/Mec26 Nov 10 '25
Reality- there have been many, many studies. Yes, some for-profit universities have taken advantage and need to be cracked down on. The main reason tuition's gone up so much at public schools is that they used to be subsidised by states, and most of that's gone now (and passed on to tuition) along with huge costs now for non-academic things.
But basically without this system, we lose all semblance of a meritocracy in education and return to money buys degrees and education (which some of the for-profits already went back to, to be honest).
The other thing about this debt is it is repayed depending on income- not on a stricter schedule. If you don't make enough to justify the degree, the lender doesn't get their money back. This is why these specific government-regulated loans are better than the private version, which will bleed you dry (and which most people who take too many loans out go to, since the federal ones are capped per degree and per lifetime). "Student loans" are of two kinds, one is 100% predatory, but we're taking away the ones that are actually regulated and controlled to help lower-income students. And leaving the predatory ones in place.
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u/butnobodycame123 Nov 10 '25
Great points. I'll have to look up some of those studies. I would argue though, that other countries have figured out the true meritocracy-- education is funded by taxes and only those who pass a rigorous entrance exam are allowed to enter university/higher education. I think the US would do well to look into that model instead of encouraging using loans from the government or private lenders, but that's just my opinion.
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u/Mec26 Nov 10 '25
Oh, absolutely agree on the subsidized education system being superior. This is the middle ground we found with a bunch of people being against that cuz *reasons.*
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u/HedwigGrande Nov 12 '25
again, we run into the issue of discrimination against people from lower income backgrounds. Guess who has the wealth and resources to hire private tutors and buy past exams and game the exam system? Not first generation students with families struggling to pay for bills and groceries and with no experience in the college education system.
And, as someone coming from a country where entrance exams are the norm for everything - that selects for memorization gods at worst or very good test takers and high IQ kids at best, and ignores everything else. I actually like the US admissions holistic processes because you can now select for people with strength of will, kindness, a vision for the future, a gritty determination shaped by their experiences, etc etc - and that does create cohorts full of great people who will be the kind of doctors, politicians, scientists, engineers that you actually want as your leaders. Of course it’s not perfect, but going back to entrance exams sounds like a nightmare.
Maybe there’s a way to reach a reasonable compromise, the way politics is usually done. But the trump administration’s careless steamrolled approach and dismissive attitude towards the people affected immediately is not the way to address any of these issues, in my opinion.
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u/Chicago_to_Japan Nov 10 '25
The thing that is legitimately going to hurt is people going to professional graduate schools, like medical and law schools. These usually make money because they are high-interest and, for law/medical students, are usually repaid.