The One Big Beautiful Bill Act, signed into law on July 4, 2025, is set to place limits on Parent Parent Loan for Undergraduate Students and eliminate the existing Graduate PLUS Loans.
Beginning in July, the families of new students will face limits on the amount they can borrow per year including at the University of Rhode Island, according to Victoria McNeil, URI’s director of financial aid. Incoming students and their families will be able to borrow up to a yearly maximum of $20,000 and will have a lifetime limit of $65,000.
In the past, parents and graduate students have not faced any limits to these loans and they could borrow up to the full amount needed.
Current students who have these loans will remain unaffected.
These PLUS Loans are considered to be additional or supplemental to students who already have financial aid and are looking to cover any extra costs for education, according to McNeil. In the past, parents and graduate students have not faced any limits to these loans and they could borrow up to the full amount needed.
URI is not yet seeing effects, but Enrollment Services wants to make sure that families are updated with any changes and new information, according to McNeil.
“URI is going to do the best that we can, and we’re already starting to think about this and meeting and coming up with plans to be able to communicate this in advance to families,” McNeil said.
The bill said that current graduate students that are existing borrowers would not be impacted, according to Dean Libutti, the associate vice president for enrollment management and student success at URI.
While these loans create opportunities for engagement and conversations around borrowing funds for education, there are major drawbacks to accessibility which overshadow that, according to Libutti. These accessibility concerns require families to turn to private funding options, like scholarships, grants and bank loans, all of which are not as stable or certain as the PLUS Loans.
The “Big Beautiful Bill” redefined what is or is not considered to be a “professional degree,” which would impact the amount a student is able to receive depending on their intended career path.
“I have some concerns there, where the way they define professional programs are limiting some really important healthcare programs,” Libutti said. “Like a masters or doctorate in nursing or physical therapy.”
Students in the “professional” programs, like law and medicine, could borrow up to $50,000 per year, according to Libutti. This is more than double the amount that other students would be able to borrow, further contributing to the accessibility issues of OBBBA.
As an alternative solution to creating a discussion around loans, changing interest rates might be more effective, according to Libutti.
“What I would love to see [is], ‘Hey, how do we create lower loan interest and incentives for students and families?’” Libutti said. “When the interest rates are high, you have families and students, the payments they’re making are only going toward the interest, so they feel as though they’re always underwater and they can’t start paying it off.”
URI Enrollment Services reminds families of incoming students that there are other options available when these funding cuts go into effect, including URI Foundation & Alumni Engagement scholarships that can be found through Academic Works, according to McNeil.
The Academic Works portal opens on April 1 through Microsoft MyApps, giving students the opportunity to apply to different scholarships that would help support their education.
