Hall Pass: Your Ticket to Understanding School Board Politics, Edition #209

The One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA), enacted into law on July 4, 2025, placed limits on the amount of higher education loans that a student can borrow from the federal government, including specific caps for graduate students that vary by degree pathway.. On April 30, 2026, the U.S. Department of Education issued a final rule for the higher-ed loan portion of the law. The rule distinguishes between graduate degree programs and professional degree programs. The rule establishes a $100,000 total borrowing limit on students in graduate degree programs, including those seeking teaching degrees and degrees in most other disciplines. Professional degree students are capped at $200,000 total. Professional degree programs comprise 11 fields, including law, dentistry, theology, and clinical psychology.

What are the arguments for and against these limits?

Heather Peske, the president of the National Council on Teacher Quality (NCTQ), says excluding teaching from the list of programs with a higher borrowing limit will exacerbate staffing shortages in schools, especially in rural districts. Peske says that the rule will disproportionately affect low-income students, making the teaching profession less diverse. Peske says the federal rule, by excluding teaching from its list of professional degree fields, demeans the profession.

Preston Cooper, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), says capping the total amount graduate students can borrow will put downward pressure on college tuition. Cooper says the cap is higher than the amount most education graduate programs charge to obtain a degree, so most students are unlikely to bump up against the limit. Cooper says the rule is likely to affect a small number of institutions which charge higher-than-average tuition and that states should find ways to develop the education workforce without asking students to take on large amounts of debt.




https://news.ballotpedia.org/2026/06/10/hall-pass-your-ticket-to-understanding-school-board-politics-edition-209/