{"id":1504,"date":"2026-06-01T18:36:37","date_gmt":"2026-06-01T18:36:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/durhammovinghub.com\/?p=1504"},"modified":"2026-06-01T18:36:37","modified_gmt":"2026-06-01T18:36:37","slug":"how-will-new-limits-on-grad-school-loans-affect-prospective-students-in-nc","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/durhammovinghub.com\/?p=1504","title":{"rendered":"How will new limits on grad-school loans affect prospective students in NC?"},"content":{"rendered":"

AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.<\/p>\n

Read our AI Policy.<\/a><\/p>\n

New limits on how much money students can borrow from the federal government to attend graduate school kick in this summer.<\/p>\n

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How those loan caps<\/a> \u2014 laid out in President Donald Trump\u2019s One Big Beautiful Bill Act<\/a> \u2014 might impact schools and students in North Carolina is not yet fully clear. People on either side of the issue have opposite opinions on how it will impact the affordability of advanced degrees.<\/p>\n

The idea behind the borrowing caps is to put downward pressure on the cost of tuition. The thinking goes like this: if students are able to borrow up to the cost of attendance \u2014 as they can under the soon-to-be-discontinued Graduate PLUS program \u2014 then universities can charge as much as they want. Students will always be able to pay and deal with the debt later.<\/p>\n

Others worry universities won\u2019t respond to the caps with decreased costs. Instead, students may be pushed into the private market for loans, which often come with more predatory, expensive terms than federal loans. Some prospective students may abandon the idea of graduate school altogether, since it costs more than they are able to borrow \u2014 that\u2019s the concern of North Carolina\u2019s attorney general, Jeff Jackson. He\u2019s suing over a provision in the limits he says could exacerbate the state\u2019s health care workforce shortage<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Here are the new loan limits prospective graduate school students will face<\/a> starting July 1. There are two categories of degrees, which come with different caps: professional degrees, which have a higher cap, and all other degrees, which have a lower cap. These limits are generally for new borrowers, and are not designed to impact students who are already enrolled.<\/p>\n

The Department of Education lists<\/a> the following 11 fields as professional, meaning that students are \u201cengaged in specialized training requiring exceptionally high costs of education:\u201d medicine, law, pharmacy, dentistry, veterinary medicine, chiropractic medicine, optometry, osteopathic medicine, podiatry, theology and clinical psychology.<\/p>\n

Absent from the list? Nursing degrees. That\u2019s the subject of Jackson\u2019s lawsuit.<\/a> Earlier this month, Jackson joined other Democrats from 25 jurisdictions in suing over the Department of Education\u2019s classification of what degrees count as professional. He says that definition is more narrow than the definition already given by Congress, making the Trump administration\u2019s definition illegal.<\/p>\n

Under the lower loan cap, Jackson told The N&O that \u201cfewer people will be able to afford to become nurses and healthcare workers. That\u2019s not good for our state.\u201d<\/p>\n

If prospective students can only borrow $20,500 per year from the government, they may turn to the private sector to cover the difference. The cap is less than the cost of many nursing schools in North Carolina. For example, at East Carolina University\u2019s nurse anesthesia program, tuition and fees<\/a> for in-state residents come to $51,000 per year. At Wake Forest\u2019s nurse anesthesia program, the total cost<\/a> of the first year is estimated at $119,000.<\/p>\n

\u201cEven certified registered nurse anesthetists, who must have a four-year college degree and must complete a three-year doctoral program are now deemed not \u2018professional,\u2019\u201d a press release about Jackson\u2019s suit reads. \u201cThese are the nurses who deliver anesthesia in 80 percent of rural communities.\u201d<\/p>\n

The loan caps might be an insurmountable barrier to entry, Jackson fears.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think there are a lot of prospective nurses who simply will decide on another career path entirely, given that [the private loan market] is their only option now,\u201d Jackson told The N&O.<\/p>\n

But the Department of Education contests this<\/a>, saying that their data \u201cindicates that 95% of nursing students borrow below the annual loan limit and therefore are not affected by the new caps.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Also absent from the professional degree classification are physician assistants, physical therapists, occupational therapists, and audiologists, Jackson points out.<\/p>\n

As for the loan caps themselves, Jackson says \u201cthat\u2019s a policy question for Congress,\u201d but he \u201crespect[s] the fact that they\u2019re wrestling with affordability of education.\u201d<\/p>\n

At Campbell Law School in Raleigh, dean J. Rich Leonard is concerned about the impact of the incoming caps on prospective students, even though law degrees are in the professional, higher-cap classification. The annual cost of attendance at Campbell Law is $89,000 \u2014 about $40,000 more than the new annual borrowing limit of $50,000. Leonard says 40% of his students borrowed more than $50,000 in the 2024-25 school year.<\/p>\n

He isn\u2019t thinking that people won\u2019t come to law school as a result of the caps. He says he could fill a class three times over with the amount of applications the school receives. But now, he isn\u2019t sure \u201chow much [those prospective students] have actually dealt with the economics of how they\u2019re going to pay for it when they get that first bill.\u201d<\/p>\n

Leonard worries that if accepted students turn to the private market, they might not get a great deal, considering that their credit scores or the credit scores of their parents may not be perfect, or in the case of younger students, may not even exist yet.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am worried about the disparate impact right on who\u2019s going to be able to afford law school going forward,\u201d Leonard told The N&O.<\/p>\n

He\u2019s thinking about partnering with North State Bank to offer a loan program to accepted students that would loan them $15,000 per year, on top of what they can still get from the federal government.<\/p>\n

At Duke\u2019s law school, the annual cost of attendance is $116,000 \u2014 more than double the new annual loan cap for professional degrees. William Hoye, associate dean of admissions and student affairs, is gearing up to work with accepted students to navigate the private loan market, something he hasn\u2019t done in decades. He\u2019s currently working on a recommended lender list.<\/p>\n

Hoye said he can\u2019t see this resulting in lower tuition at Duke Law School. It might inspire further fundraising to provide robust need-based grant programs, he said, but that\u2019s about it.<\/p>\n

The private loan market won\u2019t necessarily be a bad thing for every student, Hoye said. The Grad PLUS program had an interest rate of around 9%, plus fees \u2014 a rate that students with good credit scores may be able to beat in the private market, he hopes.<\/p>\n

UNC-Chapel Hill\u2019s associate vice provost and director for scholarships and student aid, Jackie Copeland, said her office is focused on understanding how the new policy will affect incoming students across Carolina\u2019s graduate programs. The school is committed to \u201crefining strategies to help current students complete their degrees,\u201d she told The N&O.<\/p>\n

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New federal caps on graduate loans start July 1, forcing NC students to weigh private loans, reduced enrollment and legal challenges over nursing classifications.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1503,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1504","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-read-todays-edition"],"yoast_head":"\nHow will new limits on grad-school loans affect prospective students in NC? - Durham Moving Hub<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/durhammovinghub.com\/?p=1504\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"How will new limits on grad-school loans affect prospective students in NC? 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