What are the long- and short-term implications of the demise of the GradPlus loan program? This has been the subject of dozens of conversations with friends and clients over the last few weeks. No one last a strategy yet, but I am heartened by the ideas coming from these brilliant people. None of my own ideas are “fully baked” yet, but here are some of my early thoughts that I hope may (at least) generate some conversation:

1. Ensure that your current students will be able to finish. We know that students who have taken GradPlus loans by June 30, 2026 will be able to continue them for either three more years or to the end of their program (whichever is shorter). Institutions have two priorities: 1) figuring out how to help new students (as of 7/1/2026) and 2) figuring out how to help current students finish their program. I urge grad studies leaders to focus on these nearer-term challenges just as much as the longer-term issue, or else there will be considerably less to build on.

Why? One story keeps repeating in my mind: A former colleague recently related that her two daughters – both of whom are in enrolled in doctoral programs – have told her that they think they should drop out, “since I will have to once my loans are gone.” My friend wanted to be reassuring, but she said to me “Here I am a leader in higher ed, and I have little more information than my girls do.”

So, institutions need to reassure their students that they will be able to finish. One solution may be that institutions need to develop (at least) temporary plans to offer their graduate students the kind of discounting that they have provided undergraduates for decades. I understand the huge “lift” that this would be, but we also must remember that graduate education has gone from being one of the “extra” things that institutions do to build prestige to being mission critical to enrollment health. Institutions cannot afford to let

2. Don’t turn immediately to private loan providers. Institutions must be incredibly cautious about an immediate turn to the private sector to solve this problem. Why? The very origins of the elimination of the GradPlus loan program include a belief on the right (and somewhat elsewhere) that institutions have increased their prices “because they can” – due to the availability of GradPlus loans – and they have then contributed to the massive student loan debt in the U.S.

This has led to increased scrutiny – now from both the left and the right – with the left having a particular interest in the issues of loan debt among first-generation and/or under-served populations. I recently read an article in the Chronicle (“The ‘Predatory Inclusion’ of High-Stakes Enrollment Management”) that demonstrates this scrutiny. It focused on the assistance that “financial aid leveraging” consultants provide to help institutions maximize “net tuition revenue” and insinuating that they do this on the backs of student loans of all sorts (full disclosure: my former employer was called out by name in the article).

Institutions need to carefully screen new alternatives to the GradPlus loans and provide as much information about available options to their students – not just a “pass through” to the loan opportunities, but their own analysis of the options. Almost a version of the “I approve this ad” that politicians were required to do years ago.

3. Reconsider a Tuition Reset. In my recent research, I have heard that some consultants discourage institutions from pursuing a tuition reset. Although this is all second-hand, it seems that the argument against a reset is that it is unlikely to increase net tuition, perhaps because (this is my guessing) it denies institutions the revenue from those who CAN pay the full fare, but perhaps also that it denies the revenue from loan money that would otherwise not be needed for a more affordable program.

While I understand the realities that institutions face, that last sentence lays out a stark reality. Regardless of sentiments, it is clearly time for institutions to reconsider a graduate level tuition reset. I am aware that this is an even harder challenge than an undergraduate reset – since an undergrad reset can often be “underwritten” by the discounting they would no longer have to do. A reset also provides a huge “PR” opportunity – one that would be coming at just the right time.

I want to close this article with a set of sobering stats that I hope will be used to start and continue conversations about what do to next. Let’s use these stark statistics to light a fire of urgency at our institutions. My lingering impression of these data is that nothing speaks to the importance of reducing the costs of higher education better than these IPEDS data* on the GradPlus quandary:

• $9.9 Billion: Total annual revenue from GradPlus loans that will not be available to institutions starting next year.

• $7.7 Billion: Total annual revenue to non-selective institutions (admitting fewer than 20% of applicants)

• $2.2 Billion: Total annual revenue to selective institutions (admitting fewer than 20% of applicants)

• $6.2 Billion: Total loss to institutions in Blue States without GradPlus loans

• $3.7 Billion: Total loss to institutions in Red States without GradPlus loans

• $313M: Highest total institutional revenue from GradPlus loans

• 44: Number of institutions who report more than $50M in GradPlus loan revenue

• 225: Number of institutions who report more than $10M in GradPlus loan revenue

• $18,468: Average annual GradPlus loan at selective institutions

• $33,675: Average annual GradPlus loan at non-selective institutions

• $20,500: Annual maximum on graduate level federal student loans (on which GradPlus borrowing begins).

*Source: IPEDS, 2022-23 Aggregate Data on GradPlus loan disbursements

These data make it clear that, although arrived at in the shabbiest possible way, we need to tackle the cost of graduate education in this country. If we assume that GradPlus loan debt starts only after maxing out federal student loans (at $20,500 per year), we are graduating millions of students with tens of thousands of dollars in debt, more often from non-selective than selective institutions. While the average GradPlus loan is far higher at selective institutions, the total loan volume is far higher among non-selective institutions.

While this is by no means anything approaching an analysis of the impact of GradPlus loans on program pricing, it DOES present us with some solid statistics with which we should begin a conversation on how to make graduate education more affordable for the American public.