...looks like republicans have begun their attack on students. I had been holding out that they might actually help students, especially ones who do well in school by increasing federal student aid and tying it to grades (a sensible conservative position), but they did the opposite.
In short, house republicans wanted to cut the Pell grant for people paying by the credit-hour by increasing the course workload for full Pell grant eligibility from 12 to 15 credit hours, but the senate has rejected the change. They also wanted to reduce the aggregate student loan limit from $57,500 to $50,000 for undergraduates, despite it hasn't been increased in 20 years and there is such a thing as inflation, which devalues that amount.
If you want to get a Master's (becoming a standard requirement for jobs, nowadays), your aggregate loan limit will be drastically reduced from $147,500 to $100,000 (undergraduate loans included) -- so, really if you max out undergrad loans a decrease from $90,000 to $42,500. As Master's programs are more expensive and the Pell grant can't be applied to them, the cut will price people out of everything but the cheapest, lowest-quality, likely online-only schools.
In addition, loans will now be pro-rated, the same as Pell grants currently are, based on part or full-time enrollment. So, if I'm understanding it correctly, you will only get half of your needed living expenses if you only attend part-time -- making it harder to be a student.
Lastly, Grad PLUS loans will be eliminated, which were loans that you could apply for if you were pursuing a Master's degree and your credit wasn't too awful, to help finish paying for college if you max out your other loans.
People entering law school would still have a $200k aggregate student loan limit, so if you want to be a student as long as possible, that might be a path if you can find a cheap online law school.
That having been said, there are still some fairly-easy online-only schools one can find and attend. But as for ever attending a nice college to get your Master's if you're from a middle or working-class family -- don't see how it would be possible, anymore, with these changes.
I expect that Republicans will continue to attack the working, middle-class, and poor so long as they are in power. As the divide between rich and poor increases, and the middle class disappears, recommended financial strategies include either 1) become an engineer, if possible; and/or 2) learn and get on the social safety net system before they take the rest of it away (while finding a low-stress, low-skill job that you don't care about) and not waste any more of your time trying to ascend the collapsing corporatist/capitalist system.
https://www.nasfaa.org/news-item/36533/Cassidy_Unveils_Senate_s_Education_Portion_of_Reconciliation
