Grad PLUS Loans Are Gone: How the New 2026 Loan Limits Compare to What Students Actually Borrowed

Grad PLUS loans ended for new borrowers on July 1, 2026. The debate over that change usually happens in the abstract, with big numbers and big claims on both sides. But the Department of Education's own survey data shows exactly who used Grad PLUS, how much they borrowed, and by extension, who feels the new caps most.

The best national snapshot we have is the National Postsecondary Student Aid Study (NPSAS:20), a Department of Education study covering 3.6 million graduate students in the 2019-20 year. It's the most recent complete national picture of graduate borrowing. Put its numbers next to the new loan limits and a clear story emerges: Grad PLUS was never really a master's degree program. It was a professional school program, and that's where the squeeze will be tightest.

Here's what the data shows, and what it means if you're heading to grad school this fall or planning for it.

First, the New Rules

As of July 1, 2026, new graduate borrowers face hard federal limits:

• Master's and most doctoral students: $20,500 per year in Direct Unsubsidized Loans, with a $100,000 lifetime graduate cap.
• Professional degree students (medicine, law, dentistry, pharmacy, and the programs on the professional list): $50,000 per year, with a $200,000 lifetime cap.
• Grad PLUS: eliminated for new borrowers. Students already borrowing under the old rules are grandfathered for up to three years.
• Everything combined: a $257,500 lifetime cap across all federal student loans.

Before this change, Grad PLUS let graduate students borrow up to their school's full cost of attendance, with no dollar cap. So the real question is: how much of that open-ended borrowing was actually happening?

What the Federal Data Shows

Most grad students never touched Grad PLUS

Across all graduate students in 2019-20, just 11% took out a Grad PLUS loan. By comparison, 39% used Direct Unsubsidized Loans and 43% received grants. For the typical master's student, Grad PLUS was a side door, not the main entrance: only 7.9% of master's students borrowed through it.

Professional students were the real Grad PLUS users

The program breakdown is where the data gets striking. Among doctoral students in professional practice programs, meaning fields like medicine, dentistry, law, and pharmacy, 39.6% took out Grad PLUS loans. That's five times the master's rate. Research doctorate students, who often have funded positions, barely used it at all (4.1%).

Professional students also borrowed the most across the board: 71.6% took out some kind of student loan in 2019-20, averaging $45,600 in loans in that single year.

The average Grad PLUS loan was about $25,000 a year

Among students who used Grad PLUS, the average annual amount was $25,100. By program, the averages were $22,500 for master's students, $27,300 for doctoral-professional practice students, and $23,700 for other doctoral programs like many EdD degrees. Remember, these are per-year figures. A professional student borrowing at that pace stacks it on top of unsubsidized loans, year after year.

Now Line That Up Against the New Caps

This is where the data turns into practical guidance. The impact depends almost entirely on which program you're in.

Master's students: a smaller cliff than the headlines suggest

The new $20,500 annual limit for master's students isn't new. It's the same unsubsidized limit that existed before. What disappeared is the Grad PLUS layer on top. The data says about 8% of master's students used that layer, borrowing an average of $22,500 per year. For a two-year program, that's roughly $45,000 of federal borrowing capacity that no longer exists.

If you're in the other 92%, the new rules may change nothing about your plan. If you were counting on PLUS to cover a high-cost master's program, you now need a different plan for the gap: savings, employer tuition benefits, a cheaper program, or private loans, which we've compared for graduate students here.

Professional students: the caps bind hard

Run the numbers for the average professional-practice borrower. At $45,600 in total loans per year, a four-year program adds up to about $182,400. That's already brushing against the new $200,000 lifetime professional cap, and it's just the average. Students at high-cost private programs routinely borrowed well above it under Grad PLUS, because the old rules allowed borrowing to the full cost of attendance.

Under the new rules, a professional student can borrow at most $50,000 per year and $200,000 total. For many medical and dental students, that won't cover full cost of attendance at a large share of schools. The gap has to come from somewhere: institutional aid, service-commitment programs like HPSP or NHSC, state loan programs, private loans, or choosing a lower-cost school. This is the single biggest planning change for pre-med and pre-law families, and it makes cost a bigger factor in choosing where to apply than it has been in decades.

One more wrinkle: which programs count as "professional" (and get the $50,000/$200,000 limits instead of $20,500/$100,000) has been fought over in court. If you're in nursing, PT, or another borderline field, read our post on the professional degree list and what the court ruling means.

Doctoral students outside the professional list: watch the fine print

About 1 in 5 students in "other doctoral" programs, a category that includes many education and applied doctorates, used Grad PLUS, averaging $23,700 a year. Most of these programs did not make the professional list, which means their students now face the $20,500 annual master's-level cap. If you're planning an EdD, PsyD, or similar degree, confirm your program's classification before you count on federal loans, because the difference between the two tiers is $29,500 per year.

One number worth sitting with

In the federal data, Grad PLUS use was highest among the lowest-income graduate students. Nearly 20% of those earning under $10,000 borrowed through the program, compared to under 4% of those earning $100,000 or more. Whatever you think of the policy change, the borrowers replacing Grad PLUS dollars with private credit will disproportionately be the ones with the thinnest financial cushion, and private lenders price by credit. If that's your situation, exhaust grants, assistantships, and employer benefits before borrowing privately.

What to Do With This Information

1. Know your tier before you apply. Master's and non-professional doctoral programs get $20,500 a year; professional programs get $50,000. Confirm which one your program is.
2. Budget the whole degree, not one year. The lifetime caps ($100,000 and $200,000) are the real constraint for multi-year programs. Multiply your expected annual borrowing by your program length and compare.
3. Treat the gap as a known cost. If your program's cost of attendance exceeds your federal limits, the difference is now a planning item, not a surprise. Our guide on how to pay for grad school after Grad PLUS walks through the options in order of preference.
4. Plan repayment before you borrow. New borrowers get two repayment options: the standard plan and RAP. Estimate your RAP payment at your expected starting salary before you commit to a borrowing number.
5. Compare programs by net cost. With borrowing capped, the price difference between schools matters more than ever. Create your free CollegeLens plan to compare real costs and map your funding before you commit.

The Bottom Line

The federal government's own data shows Grad PLUS was concentrated exactly where the new caps bite hardest: professional programs, where 4 in 10 students used it and total borrowing averaged $45,600 a year. Master's students, the majority of grad borrowers, mostly never used it. If you're planning a professional degree, the new $200,000 lifetime cap is now one of the most important numbers in your college math. If you're planning a master's, your federal picture likely looks the same as before, just with no safety valve above $20,500 a year.

Either way, you can no longer borrow whatever a program costs. The families who plan around that early, by comparing programs on cost, mapping every year of borrowing, and lining up alternatives for any gap, will be the ones this change hurts least.

A note on the data: figures come from NPSAS:20, which covers the 2019-20 academic year, the most recent completed national study of how students pay for school. Dollar figures are per-year averages among students who actually borrowed, not all students.

-- Sravani at CollegeLens