Effects of the Elimination of the Grad PLUS Loan Program on Student Pharmacist Borrowers

Federal bill H.R.1 eliminates Grad PLUS loans and changes borrowing limits for Direct Unsubsidized loans for professional students, including student pharmacists. The study evaluates the total gap in pharmacy school cost of attendance (CoA), which would previously have been addressed by a Grad PLUS loan after applying the new federal Direct Unsubsidized loan limit.

A secondary data analysis was conducted using publicly available CoA data for colleges of pharmacy (COPs) in the US. 2025-26 tuition and fees and indirect expenses were collected from the American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy and each COP's university website, respectively, to calculate CoA for each COP. Annual cost gap (difference between annual CoA and the annual Direct Unsubsidized loan limit of $50,000) for each year of each program was summed to calculate total cost gap. The Kruskal-Wallis one-way analysis of variance was conducted to assess the effects of program classification (public in-state, public out-of-state, private 4-year, and private 3-year) on total cost gap.

A total of 133 COPs were included. The median total cost gap for public in-state PharmD programs ($17,948) was significantly lower than that for public out-of-state ($68,214), private 4-year ($102,087), and private 3-year ($132,609) programs. The median total cost gap for public out-of-state programs was significantly lower than that for private 4-year and 3-year programs.

Loss of Grad PLUS loans may pose a significant financial barrier to pharmacy education. COPs should use multiple strategies to address students' financial challenges, including federal and state advocacy, private loan options, tuition reduction, philanthropy, financial assistance partnerships, and loan repayment and forgiveness programs.