Students pursuing professional degrees will be able to borrow up to $200,000 in federal student loans beginning in 2026.

With these changes, medical students will no longer be able to borrow up to the cost of attendance with Grad PLUS loans. In addition, Parent PLUS loans will have a cap of $20,000 per student per year and a lifetime limit of $65,000 per dependent student. Although undergraduate loans are unchanged, they will count toward lifetime limits.

Some nursing jobs require no advanced degree, and research shows nurses typically complete their degrees with loan amounts under the new cap. However, the proposed change would put a new burden on nursing graduate students seeking federal loans, because their degrees would not be eligible for the higher "professional" cap.

COLUMBIA, S.C. — Nursing and health care organizations in South Carolina are raising concerns about a new Trump administration plan that would limit how much certain graduate students can borrow in federal student loans.

Federal student loan limits are changing for North Florida graduate students. See how programs like nursing and physical therapy are affected and what students are doing to adapt.

Since President Donald Trump took office in January 2025, sweeping changes have been made to federal student debt relief programs.

New federal student-loan rules could make it harder for South Carolina nursing students to afford graduate programs, raising concerns among health officials about the state’s growing nursing shortage.