AAUW Statement on Department of Education’s Proposed Rule on Student Loans and Repayment

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Today, the U.S. Department of Education opened a public comment period on a proposed rule that would implement major student loan changes scheduled to take effect July 1, 2026. Stemming from the ‘One Big Beautiful Bill Act’ budget reconciliation law, the proposed rule would end Grad PLUS for new borrowers, set new borrowing caps, and establish new student loan repayment pathways. AAUW is urging students, educators, and the public to submit comments so the Department fully understands how these changes will shape access to graduate and professional degrees for women, especially Black and Latina women and student parents.

Statement from Gloria L. Blackwell, AAUW CEO:

For millions of women, higher education, especially graduate education, is the bridge from a paycheck to real stability. That’s why AAUW is deeply concerned about this proposal: it would make it harder to finance advanced degrees and could deepen gender and racial inequities in who gets to move up.

As the nation’s largest non-institutional funder of women’s graduate education, we see the stakes up close. These changes risk pulling the ladder up behind the women who rely on advanced credentials to build security — especially Black and Latina women and student parents, who often have the least financial cushion and the most to juggle.

And here’s what people need to understand: the equity issue isn’t only what counts as a  ‘professional’ degree, it’s that women-majority graduate pathways like education leadership can be left out and loans capped at levels that don’t reflect real costs. When we restrict borrowing without lowering costs, we don’t solve affordability, we narrow opportunity.

That’s why AAUW is urging the public to speak out during the comment period. The Department needs to hear the real-world disparate impact of these choices, because equitable access means women aren’t priced out, or pushed out, of the degrees that power economic mobility and leadership.

AAUW will mobilize public comments urging the Department to reject policies that ration opportunity by wealth, and to ensure that any implementation of loan caps does not shut women, particularly Black, Latina, NHPI and Native women, student parents, and first-generation students, out of graduate and professional pathways.

Comments are due March 2, 2026 via Regulations.gov under Docket ID ED-2025-OPE-0944.

### 

AAUW (American Association of University Women) is the nation’s leading organization for equity in higher education and women’s economic empowerment. Founded in 1881 by women who defied society’s conventions by earning college degrees, AAUW has since worked to increase women’s access, opportunity, and equity in higher education through research, advocacy, and philanthropy of over $146 million, supporting thousands of women scholars. Learn more at aauw.org.