No. If you’re currently receiving aid or are in repayment, your loans and grants remain under their present terms for now. Most changes—including new loan limits and repayment options—will apply starting in the 2026–27 academic year. 

Changes to your enrollment, such as a leave of absence or interrupted enrollment, may affect your future eligibility.

The OB3 law requires annual loan amounts to be prorated in direct proportion to your enrollment status. This change is effective with all loans borrowed for the 2026-27 academic year. Your eligibility will be determined at the time of disbursement based on the number of credits a full-time student is expected to take for the academic year.

Students may not receive any more than 50% of their annual loan limit each semester. This means that if you did not borrow your loans in the Fall semester, you cannot then request the totality of those loans in the Spring semester.

A legacy student is a student who is currently enrolled and has retained pre-OB3 loan eligibility. To be a legacy student, you must:

• Be enrolled in a program of study as of June 30, 2026; 
• Receive a Direct Loan Disbursement for the same program of study prior to July 1, 2026;
• Remain enrolled in your current program of study; and
• Be within your expected time to credential

Undergraduate Legacy Students are:

• subject to the pre-OB3 Parent PLUS Loan rules that do not cap the annual or lifetime amounts for up the lesser of either 3 years, or the remaining time needed to earn your degree.

Graduate & Professional Legacy Students are:

• able to participate in the Graduate PLUS loan program as long as they are within the expected time frame needed to earn their degree. For example, if your graduate program is 3 years long, and you are in year 2, then you may continue to borrow for the additional 3rd year.
• not subject to the OB3 aggregate loan limits

However, all students are subject to the Schedule of Reduction rules that require loans to be prorated if enrolled less than full-time.

"Expected time to credential" references the number of full-time semesters or years remaining in your program.

Legacy students retain their pre-OB3 loan eligibility for the lesser of:

• three years, or
• the expected time to credential

For example:

• A standard undegraduate bachelor's degree has an expected time to credential of 4 years. This means you should complete the program in 4 years.
• A standard master's degree has an expected time to credential of 2 years. This means you should complete the program in 2 years.

If you are entering the 3rd year of your 4-year undergraduate program and you are eligible for the legacy provisions under OB3, then you retain your legacy status for 1 more year.

This also means that if you change your major and require additional time to complete your degree beyond the 4 years, you may lose your legacy status in the 5th year.

If you are entering the 2nd year of your 2-year master's program, and you are eligible for the legacy provisions under OB3, then you are in the final year of your eligibility.

Please see the Temple University Bulletin entry for your program to determine the standard program length to calculate your expected time to credential.

There are no changes to how much federal loans an undergraduate student may borrow.

• Annual loan limit $5,500-$12,500 based on year in school and dependency status.
• Aggregate loan limit $31,000-$57,500 based on dependency status.

Yes, but starting in the 2026–27 academic year, new limits apply:

• Parents will be capped at $20,000 per year and $65,000 lifetime in PLUS borrowing per student.
• If both parents borrow on behalf of the same student, their combined borrowing is capped at $20,000 per year and $65,000 lifetime.

Legacy Provision for Parent Borrowers: If you already have Parent PLUS Loans, you are eligible to borrow under the previous loan limits for the remainder of your student’s program or three years, whichever is shorter. Your student must remain continuously enrolled in their current program. If they take a leave of absence or don’t complete a term, you will be considered a new borrower and subject to the new limits.

Yes. Starting in the 2026–27 academic year, students will no longer be eligible for a Pell Grant if their Student Aid Index (SAI) is greater than twice the maximum Pell award for that year. Pell award amounts will continue to vary based on income and family size, but there is now a firm cutoff tied to the annual Pell maximum.

Maximum Pell Grants for 2026-27 is $7,395, so students with a SAI of 14791 or higher are not eligible for Pell.

No. For an undergraduate student to borrow additional unsubsidized loan funds, the parent must be credit denied for the Parent PLUS Loan or otherwise ineligible to apply for the loan. Reaching the aggregate borrowing limit is not an exceptional circumstance.

Grad PLUS Loans are being phased out under the new law.

New graduate and professional students will no longer be eligible to borrow Grad PLUS for terms that begin on or after July 1, 2026.

If you’re already borrowing Direct Loans before July 1, 2026, you may borrow Grad PLUS loans. You must be continuously enrolled in your current program of study to remain eligible. If you take a leave of absence or go on academic pause, you will be considered a new borrower subject to the new loan limits. You will also be considered a new borrower if you temporarily stop attending your current program of study to enroll in and/or complete another program.

Starting in the 2026–27 academic year, new federal loan limits will apply to graduate and professional students:

• Graduate students will be limited to $20,500 per year in unsubsidized loans.
  • The new lifetime cap on graduate-level borrowing is $100,000
• Professional students (such as those in the MD program) will be limited to $50,000 per year in unsubsidized loans.
  • The new lifetime cap on professional-level borrowing is $200,000

If you borrowed before July 1, 2026 and are enrolled in the same program of study, you remain eligible for the previous loan limits. Changing your program or interrupting your enrollment will affect your eligibility.

The distinction between “graduate” and “professional” programs is defined in federal regulation and affects how much you can borrow each year. Professional programs are typically those that signify completion of academic requirements for beginning work or practice in a given profession, are generally at the doctoral level, and lead directly to a degree required for licensure in a recognized profession, such as medicine (MD). The federal regulations include the following programs in the definition:

• Pharmacy (Pharm.D.);
• Dentistry (D.D.S. or D.M.D.);
• Veterinary Medicine (D.V.M.);
• Chiropractic (D.C. or D.C.M.);
• Law (L.L.B. or J.D.);
• Medicine (M.D.);
• Optometry (O.D.);
• Osteopathic Medicine (D.O.),;
• Podiatry (D.P.M., D.P., or Pod.D.);
• Theology (M.Div., or M.H.L.); and
• Clinical Psychology (Psy.D. or Ph.D.)

All other post-baccalaureate programs—including most master’s and PhD programs—are classified as graduate.

No, students who are enrolled in preparatory coursework do not qualify for the legacy borrowing provisions under the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA) and would be treated as new borrowers.