Trump’s Big Beautiful Bill Could Hit Georgia College Students Hard

If you’re grinding through a part-time associate degree, navigating a graduate program at Emory, or relying on a Parent PLUS loan to get through your senior year at Fort Valley State — your financial reality is about to change.

Donald Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill,” recently signed into law, is a blueprint for a different kind of higher education system — one where traditional college aid shrinks, short-term job training surges, and millions of students must rethink what’s financially possible.

For Georgia, where more than half a million students rely on federal aid, the effects could be transformational — or devastating, depending on where you sit.

📉 Why It Matters: The bill dismantles key pillars of student financial support: cutting off broad access to Pell Grants, capping or killing federal loan programs, and replacing income-based repayment with a 30-year plan that’s less generous and harder to escape.

It’s a shift from long-term degrees to short-term skills, from need-based support to self-financed survival. And it hits especially hard in a state like Georgia, where public colleges, community campuses, and historically black colleges serve a student body that often walks a financial tightrope.

🔍 What Changes, and Who It Hits: The Pell Grant, the backbone of aid for low-income students, is being reengineered to function as a last-dollar scholarship. That means if a student receives institutional scholarships or state grants that already cover tuition — even partially — their Pell eligibility may vanish. At campuses like Georgia State Perimeter and East Georgia State, where part-time enrollment and working students are common, that change could cut hundreds off from aid they’ve long counted on.

Students enrolled less than half-time are disqualified from Pell altogether unless they enroll in a new category of programs the bill calls “Workforce Pell.” These are short, job-focused certificate courses, often six to 15 weeks long, at technical colleges like Gwinnett Tech or Chattahoochee Tech. While they may serve students looking for quick employment, they represent a sharp pivot away from traditional degree pathways.

Meanwhile, the Parent PLUS loan program, a crucial tool for families who don’t qualify for need-based aid but still can’t afford full tuition, is being capped. Families will now be limited to $20,000 per year and a lifetime total of $65,000 per child. For parents putting multiple kids through college, especially at public institutions like UGA or Georgia Southern, that number won’t go far. At historically black colleges, where Parent PLUS loans often cover the last gap in tuition financing, the impact could be even worse.

Graduate students will fare no better. The Graduate PLUS loan program, which has long helped medical students, law students, and educators finance expensive degrees, is being eliminated entirely by mid-2026. New borrowing caps will limit what graduate students can receive to $50,000 a year for professional programs, and just $20,500 for all others. For programs at Emory, Georgia State, and Mercer, the loss could be a dealbreaker.

And when it comes time to repay what they’ve borrowed, future graduates won’t have the same options. All current income-driven repayment plans — including SAVE, PAYE, and IBR — will be sunsetted by 2028. In their place: a 30-year “Repayment Assistance Plan,” where borrowers pay between 1 and 10 percent of their income, with forgiveness only after three decades. Unlike SAVE, this new plan doesn’t pause unpaid interest. Traditional protections, deferments for unemployment, economic hardship forbearance, are being capped or eliminated.

That will make it harder for low-income borrowers to navigate life transitions, and riskier for anyone who relies on Public Service Loan Forgiveness. Under the new law, the Education Secretary has broad power to disqualify employers from eligibility. That adds a cloud of uncertainty for thousands of Georgia teachers, nurses, social workers, and first responders who once saw public service loan forgiveness as a long-term safety net.

📍 The Fallout in Georgia: The effects of the bill won’t land evenly. Public universities like UGA and Kennesaw State could lose students who no longer qualify for enough aid. Community colleges will feel the squeeze on part-time and working students. Historically black colleges may be hit hardest, losing access to both Pell and PLUS loans in large numbers.

Graduate schools may see sharp drops in enrollment, especially in high-cost professional programs. And the students who can still afford them will likely carry more private debt — loans with higher interest rates, fewer protections, and no chance of forgiveness.

At the same time, technical colleges offering fast-track credentials may see a windfall. Workforce Pell is expected to flood into certificate programs that promise skills over degrees. In places like Lanier Tech and Southern Crescent, that could bring a surge of enrollment — but also widen the divide between students on a path to four-year degrees and those taking the quickest off-ramp to the job market.

📊 What the Numbers Say: Georgia’s public colleges enrolled more than 340,000 undergraduates last year. About 41% received Pell Grants. More than 23,000 families used Parent PLUS loans. And over 36,000 students are currently enrolled in graduate programs statewide.

Each of those segments faces direct cuts, caps, or changes under the new law.

Workforce Pell, on the other hand, is built to grow, especially in southern and rural counties where technical programs are already expanding.

📁 The Sources: H.R. 1 (The One Big Beautiful Bill Act), National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators, ELFI/SouthEast Bank, Association of Public Land Grant Universities, American Council on Education, American Academy of Physician Associates, American Enterprise Institute, National Association of College and University Business Officers.