Congress Wants to Cut Parent PLUS Options So You’re Trapped in Debt for Life

You borrowed to give your child a future. Congress plans to make it your life sentence.

Under a sweeping new proposal, House Republicans plan to eliminate essential repayment protections for Parent PLUS borrowers, taking away your access to income-driven repayment and loan forgiveness.

If this bill passes, thousands of parents could see affordable repayment options vanish overnight, forcing many into financial crisis, crushing monthly payments, or even default.

Here’s exactly what’s happening, and how you can protect yourself.

On April 2025, Republicans on the House Education and Workforce Committee advanced a sweeping proposal called the Student Success and Taxpayer Savings Plan. If passed, the bill would drastically limit repayment options and loan forgiveness opportunities for Parent PLUS borrowers.

Under the proposed legislation:

• The Income-Contingent Repayment (ICR) plan—currently the only income-driven repayment option available to Parent PLUS borrowers—would be eliminated, along with other popular IDR plans like PAYE and SAVE.

• A new repayment plan, called the Repayment Assistance Plan (RAP), would replace these programs—but critically, Parent PLUS borrowers wouldn’t be eligible for RAP at all, even after consolidating.

• Without access to RAP or other IDR options, most Parent PLUS borrowers would lose the ability to pursue Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) or benefit from long-term loan forgiveness tied to income-based repayment.

• The Parent PLUS program itself would be gradually phased out starting July 1, 2026, significantly limiting parents’ future borrowing ability.

These proposed changes are part of a broader political battle over federal spending and taxes. House Republicans are using a legislative tool called budget reconciliation. This is a process that lets them pass budget-related changes with only a simple majority in the Senate to enact President Trump’s economic priorities, mainly focused on extending expiring tax cuts.

But extending those tax breaks significantly increases the federal deficit. To offset those costs, Republicans are targeting federal student loan programs for substantial cuts.

In other words, Parent PLUS borrowers have become collateral damage in a political effort to balance budgets and fund tax cuts.

Lawmakers pushing these reforms argue the cuts are necessary to reduce taxpayer costs and shift more responsibility back onto individual borrowers, despite the clear hardship it creates for families who have already committed to these loans.

Related: Parent PLUS Loan Repayment Options

This Isn’t the First Time

Parent PLUS borrowers have faced these threats before. In 2017, President Trump proposed a similar budget plan that would have eliminated access to income-driven repayment for Parent PLUS borrowers entirely.

Under that earlier proposal, parents borrowing after July 1, 2018, would have lost eligibility for any income-driven plans, including ICR, their only option.

Though that proposal didn’t become law, the recurrence of similar threats underscores a persistent political vulnerability for Parent PLUS borrowers: access to affordable payments and loan forgiveness consistently remains at risk.

These proposed changes would hit Parent PLUS borrowers hardest, but not all parents are impacted equally. Here’s who faces the most significant consequences:

1. Current Parent PLUS Borrowers Not in IDR

Parents who haven’t yet consolidated into a Direct Consolidation Loan or enrolled in an IDR Plan would lose the chance to access any other IDR plan. Without IDR, they’d have limited repayment options—Standard, Graduated, or Extended plans—that could mean much higher monthly payments.

Related: What Happens to Parent PLUS Loans When You Retire?

2. Parent PLUS Borrowers Counting on PSLF

Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) requires borrowers to enroll in an income-driven repayment plan or the 10-year Standard plan.

Without access to IDR, most parents would effectively lose PSLF eligibility because the Standard plan fully repays the loan over 10 years, leaving nothing left to forgive.

Related: Are Parent PLUS Loans Eligible for PSLF?

3. Future Parent PLUS Borrowers

Starting July 1, 2026, new Parent PLUS loans would be severely limited. Parents could only borrow after their student maxes out Direct Stafford loans, and total borrowing would be capped at $50,000, regardless of how many children they have. Families needing more funds would be forced into private student loans with fewer protections and repayment options.

Who’s Safe (For Now)

Parents who have already consolidated into a Direct Consolidation Loan and are actively enrolled in ICR before the legislation passes would automatically shift to the Income-Based Repayment plan, potentially lowering their monthly payments.

In short, parents who haven’t acted yet face the harshest outcomes.

The proposed changes aren’t law yet, but they’re moving fast and could become reality soon:

• House Republicans aim to pass their version of the bill by Memorial Day 2025.

• The Senate must pass its own version of the bill or adopt the House version, likely by summer 2025.

• If differences remain, both chambers must reconcile and approve the final bill, potentially by late summer or early fall.

• President Trump would then sign the bill into law, meaning changes could be effective as early as late 2025 or early 2026.

Additionally, the phase-out of new Parent PLUS loans would officially begin for all periods of instruction starting July 1, 2026.

If you have Parent PLUS loans, your best protection against these proposed changes is to consolidate and enroll in the Income-Contingent Repayment plan as soon as possible, before any new legislation takes effect.

While consolidation does carry a risk of interest capitalization, securing access to an income-driven repayment plan now may be your only opportunity to preserve manageable monthly payments and potential loan forgiveness down the road.

If you wait, you risk losing access permanently, forcing you into repayment options that may become unaffordable.

For future borrowers, the proposed changes mean fewer safe borrowing options, likely pushing more families toward riskier private student loans or forcing them to reconsider college affordability altogether.