Student loan reforms outlined in President Donald Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill will be implemented in July 2026.
The U.S. Department of Education and stakeholders have reached consensus on how to implement President Donald Trump’s plan to revamp the federal student loan system, including which degree programs qualify for which tier of loans.
The department said on Nov. 6 that it had concluded the second and final negotiating session on the full package of student loan reforms laid out in Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill, which became law in July.
Negotiations resumed despite the ongoing government shutdown. For both the Department of Education and its Reimagining and Improving Student Education (RISE) committee, the central question was how to classify graduate and professional programs under the new loan structure.
Under the One Big Beautiful Bill, students enrolled in professional programs can borrow up to $200,000 total, limited to $50,000 per year. Borrowing for all other graduate programs is capped at $100,000 overall and $20,500 per year.
Republican lawmakers hope these new borrowing caps will drive down rising tuition and make graduate school more affordable.
Higher education advocates counter that there is little room for cuts in fields that are inherently expensive, such as healthcare, and that instead of reducing costs, the changes could make loans less accessible and discourage enrollment in high-demand professions.
When it came to what programs count as “professional” and gain access to the highest amount of federal loans, negotiators agreed to a definition covering 11 degree types, including pharmacy, dentistry, veterinary medicine, chiropractic, law, medicine, optometry, osteopathic medicine, podiatry, a master’s degree in divinity, and a doctorate in clinical psychology.
It will also include certain doctoral programs sharing the same Classification of Instructional Programs (CIP) codes as those 11 professions.
This final definition is slightly broader than the department’s initial proposal that excluded clinical psychology, but narrower than a competing plan from committee member Alex Holt, who had proposed including any program requiring at least 80 credit hours and sharing a CIP code with one of the listed professional fields.
By Bill Pan
