By Staff Reporter
ALBANY — A first-year medical student from New York at the University at Buffalo will need about $83,331 to get through the 2026-27 school year, by UB’s own estimate. Washington now lets that student borrow $50,000 a year in federal loans.
That gap, and versions of it across graduate schools statewide, was the subject of an Assembly hearing in Albany on Tuesday on how the 2025 federal budget law is changing student lending. Medical school leaders, social work educators and student advocates told the Higher Education and Banks committees that the new caps will push students toward private loans or out of the professions New York says it needs most.
What changed on July 1
The federal law, the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (P.L. 119-21), ended the Grad PLUS loan program for new borrowers on July 1, 2026. Grad PLUS let graduate and professional students borrow up to their school’s full cost of attendance. In its place are hard caps. According to UB’s financial aid office:
- Students in programs the U.S. Department of Education designates as “professional,” such as medicine, can borrow up to $50,000 a year in Direct Unsubsidized loans, with a $200,000 aggregate limit.
- Students in other graduate programs can borrow up to $20,500 a year, with a $100,000 aggregate limit.
- A new $257,500 lifetime limit covers all federal Direct Loans combined.
- Parent PLUS loans are capped at $20,000 a year and $65,000 per student.
Current students who borrowed before July 1 keep access to Grad PLUS for up to three academic years if they stay in the same program, UB says. Which programs count as “professional” is not settled: UB notes that a federal court in Washington, D.C., temporarily stayed parts of the department’s definition in late June, shifting some programs on and off the list while the case continues.
“Significant concerns have been raised that the elimination of the federal Graduate PLUS Loan program, for example, will reduce access to financing for graduate and professional students pursuing advanced credentials,” committee chairs Alicia Hyndman and Clyde Vanel wrote in their hearing notice, adding that the program’s end “may force many students to turn to riskier financing options or reconsider graduate education opportunities altogether.” The notice says about 2.4 million New Yorkers carry federal student loan debt.
The math at UB’s medical school
UB’s Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences lists an estimated 2026-27 cost of attendance of $83,330.86 for an entering New York resident, including $46,470 in tuition and $28,814 for living and transportation, plus fees, books and equipment. For a nonresident, the estimate is $108,050.86.
For a new student relying on federal loans alone, that leaves a gap of about $33,000 in the first year for a New Yorker and about $58,000 for an out-of-state student. Adding UB’s 2026-27 resident estimates for all four class years comes to about $331,700, well above the $200,000 aggregate cap. Scholarships, family money and the school’s own aid can cover some of the difference. Private loans, often at higher rates, are likely to cover much of the rest.
Jonathan Teyan, president and CEO of the Associated Medical Schools of New York, whose members include UB’s Jacobs School and its School of Dental Medicine, told the committees the caps arrive as the country faces a doctor shortage.
“The changes to student borrowing will directly and negatively impact medical students, making medicine less accessible, even as the U.S. is facing a projected physician shortage of up to 86,000 by 2036,” Mr. Teyan said, according to his published testimony.
“These new limits on federal lending will disproportionately affect medical students from lower income backgrounds, forcing those students to either seek higher-interest private loans or discouraging them from pursuing careers in medicine altogether,” he said.
He cited national figures showing median education debt of $215,000 for 2025 medical school graduates who borrowed, and a median cost of attendance of $286,454 for the class of 2025 at public medical schools.
Social workers and nurses face tighter limits
The squeeze is tighter for fields left off the department’s “professional” list. Mr. Teyan said the department’s rulemaking excluded many health care degrees in short supply, including nurse practitioners, physician assistants, social workers, and physical and occupational therapists, capping their federal graduate borrowing at $100,000.
Amy Greenstein, assistant dean of enrollment services at NYU’s Silver School of Social Work, testified that 45 percent of the school’s MSW students borrowed through Grad PLUS in 2025, and that licensed master and clinical social workers make up about 65 percent of New York’s licensed mental health workforce, citing the state Office of Mental Health.
“Ultimately, this is about more than student loans,” Ms. Greenstein said, according to her school’s posted testimony. “It is about who can afford to become a social worker and whether New York will have a workforce with the size and scope necessary to meet the needs of its communities.”
What Albany could do
Witnesses offered the Legislature competing fixes ahead of the 2027 session.
Mr. Teyan proposed two: a state program that would promise loan repayment to medical students who commit to practicing in rural areas, modeled on the federal National Health Service Corps Students to Service program, and a state lending mechanism, or a designated preferred lender, offering competitive-rate loans to New Yorkers at New York medical schools, forgivable after years of service in high-need areas.
Ms. Greenstein urged lawmakers to revive a proposed New York State Social Work Fellows Program, backed by Assembly Member Michaelle Solages, that would aid MSW students in exchange for three years of service in high-need communities.
The Institute for College Access & Success, a student-aid advocacy group, urged caution on the state-lending idea. Kirsten Keefe, its senior director of policy and advocacy for New York, testified that lawmakers should strengthen the Tuition Assistance Program, enact consumer protections for private student loans and “exercise caution in any consideration of a state-backed student loan program,” the group said.
Any of these would cost money in a state budget whose own financial plan projects billions in gaps in coming years. For Western New York, the stakes include whether the next class of doctors, dentists and social workers trained in Buffalo can afford to finish, and whether they stay. The Buffalo Chronicle has asked UB how many of its students relied on Grad PLUS and how it is helping entering students close the gap.
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