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- The Department of Education is beginning its second week of negotiations on Trump's student-loan repayment overhaul.The department confirmed the work will continue despite the ongoing government shutdown.New borrowing caps and repayment plan changes are the main topics on the table.
The government shutdown isn't stopping the Trump administration from forging ahead with its student-loan repayment changes.
On Monday, the Department of Education will begin its second week of negotiations with stakeholders on President Donald Trump's plan to overhaul repayment plans and impose new caps on borrowing. The changes were codified in Trump's "big beautiful" spending bill, which he signed into law in July. The department is now undergoing negotiated rulemaking, a process that includes negotiation sessions and periods of public comment, with implementation set to begin in July 2026.
The negotiations are continuing despite the ongoing government shutdown. Jeff Andrade, the department's deputy assistant secretary for policy, told negotiators during the first session in October that a lapse in appropriations would not prevent the rulemaking process from moving forward.
"Failure to actively continue work towards promulgating these regulatory changes would substantially impair otherwise funded programs, like Pell Grants and direct loans, from implementing new statutory requirements by the statutory deadlines under the One Big Beautiful Bill Act," Andrade said.
While the sessions will continue, the shutdown means that information negotiators receive from the department, like proposed text for the rule, will not be posted on the department's website until the shutdown ends. Still, the sessions are made available to the public via livestream.
Here's where Trump's repayment overhaul stands ahead of the second week of negotiations.
Borrowing caps and new repayment plans
A topic that dominated the first negotiation session was the department's proposed changes to graduate and professional borrowing. Trump's spending law eliminated the Grad PLUS program, which allowed graduate and professional students to borrow up to the full cost of attendance for their programs. It also implemented new borrowing caps: $20,500 a year or $100,000 over a lifetime for graduate students, and $50,000 a year and $200,000 over a lifetime for professional students.
The department also proposed that the higher professional degree cap would be limited to 10 programs: pharmacy, dentistry, veterinary medicine, chiropractic, law, medicine, optometry, osteopathic medicine, podiatry, and theology.
Negotiators raised concerns with the caps and the list of degrees that would qualify, especially because many advanced degree programs cost more than the caps and could lead borrowers to either forgo their degrees or use the private student-loan market for additional financing.
"There are some professions here that are crucial to our state economic development and workforce development, and this list doesn't have it, so I'm concerned this is going to really cripple certain aspects of what we're trying to get done here," Bennett Boggs, a negotiater and commissioner of the Missouri Department of Higher Education & Workforce Development, said during the first week of negotiations.
In addition to the new borrowing caps, the department also plans to eliminate existing income-driven repayment plans and replace them with two options: a standard repayment plan and a new Repayment Assistance Plan, which would allow for forgiveness of remaining balances after 30 years.
The department said it would implement the new plans by July 1, 2026. Borrowers who took out loans prior to that date would be able to retain access to the existing income-based repayment plan, while borrowers who take out loans after that date can enroll in the Repayment Assistance Plan.
The proposals could still change as negotiations continue this week. The public will then have an opportunity to comment before the department moves toward final implementation.
