President Donald Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBB) is fundamentally shifting the federal medical school borrowing landscape, eliminating long-standing safety nets for incoming students.
Historically, medical students leveraged the Federal Graduate PLUS Program to borrow up to their school’s full cost of attendance (COA), effectively insulating them from high-risk private markets.
The OBBB shifts that “open-ended need” model to rigid caps:
• Grad PLUS sunset: The Federal Grad PLUS program is completely discontinued for new borrowers.
• Annual professional cap: Federal Direct Unsubsidized Loans are newly capped at $50,000 annually for professional degrees.
• Lifetime professional cap: Total federal professional borrowing is capped at $200,000.
• Total education cap: Absolute combined federal debt (undergraduate + graduate) is limited to $257,500.