Federal loan limits,
how much can you actually borrow.

Field guide

The 2026 federal loan limits, precisely.

Grad PLUS loans let graduate and professional students borrow up to their full cost of attendance for decades. That's over. Starting July 1, 2026, Grad PLUS is eliminated for new borrowers, replaced by fixed dollar caps — and a new overall lifetime ceiling applies across every type of federal borrowing a student does, from freshman year through a doctorate.

The new caps

• General graduate (most master's degrees, including the MBA): $20,500/year, $100,000 aggregate.
• The 11 professional-degree fields — law, medicine, osteopathic medicine, dentistry, veterinary medicine, pharmacy, optometry, podiatry, chiropractic, theology, clinical psychology: $50,000/year, $200,000 aggregate.
• Parent PLUS: $20,000/year, $65,000 aggregate — per dependent student, previously unlimited.
• Lifetime maximum aggregate: $257,500 across all federal student borrowing (Parent PLUS excluded, tracked separately).

The 11-field list is contested, not settled

The Department of Education's own rule narrowing which fields count as "professional degrees" is currently tied up in litigation. A federal judge preliminarily stayed the narrowed 11-field definition in June 2026, finding the Department exceeded the authority Congress actually gave it. A final resolution isn't expected before December 2026 at the earliest, and in the meantime the Department has been applying a broader interim list without issuing final public guidance on exactly which programs qualify. This tool uses the original, most-cited 11-field list as its basis, but don't treat it as permanently locked in.

The real grandfather rule — a genuine correction worth understanding

It's tempting to assume old debt is simply excluded from the new caps. That's not quite how it works. What actually exists is a temporary "interim exception": if you were enrolled in your specific program as of June 30, 2026, and had already received a Direct Loan for that program before July 1, 2026, you keep the OLD limits — $20,500/year flat for graduate and professional students alike, $138,500 aggregate, and continued access to Grad PLUS up to cost of attendance — for the lesser of 3 more academic years or your remaining program length. During that window, you're not subject to the $257,500 lifetime cap at all. But once the window closes — you graduate, withdraw, or simply run out of eligible time — you become fully subject to the new limits, and the Department of Education's own guidance is explicit that the $257,500 cap then includes every federal dollar you've ever borrowed, "without regard to any amounts repaid, forgiven, canceled, or otherwise discharged" — even Grad PLUS loans taken during your legacy window. The grandfather protection is a delay, not a permanent exemption.

Parent PLUS and PSLF: a closed door, not an open question

Parent PLUS loans were never eligible for most income-driven repayment plans on their own — borrowers typically had to consolidate first. As of July 1, 2026, new Parent PLUS loans lose access to income-driven repayment entirely, landing instead on a standard repayment plan. Since Public Service Loan Forgiveness requires IDR enrollment as a prerequisite, this also closes off PSLF — including any progress a parent had already made toward it. A narrow escape hatch existed for existing Parent PLUS borrowers who consolidated by June 30, 2026 to lock in IDR/PSLF access; that deadline has already passed. If PSLF matters to your family's plans, Parent PLUS is not a route there anymore.

Disclaimer

This calculator is for informational planning purposes only and does not constitute financial aid advice. It signals likely eligibility for the interim exception from your disbursement date but doesn't model the exact 3-year or remaining-program-length window, which depends on institution-specific program-length data this tool doesn't collect. The 11-field professional-degree list reflects the current, litigation-contested rule as of this review — confirm your exact status with your school's financial aid office or StudentAid.gov.