· 6 min read · worthmydegree.com
Class of 2027: the money cheat sheet
A student graduating from high school in 2027 starts college in the fall of 2027, borrows under caps that took effect July 1, 2026, files a FAFSA that opens October 1, 2026, and repays under plans that did not exist two years ago. Every earlier class had at least one foot in the old rules. This one has none.
Here is the whole of it on one page. Every figure is the law's own number and is exact. Where this site runs the arithmetic, the tool is named beside it.
What can be borrowed
The federal government lends in two names, the student's and the parents', and both loans have ceilings no school can raise.
| Loan | Per year | In total |
|---|---|---|
| Student's own Direct loan, dependent student | $5,500 first year, $6,500 second, $7,500 third and fourth | $27,000 over four years, $31,000 lifetime |
| Parent PLUS | $20,000 per student | $65,000 per student |
| Both together, one bachelor's degree | $92,000 | |
| Graduate school, later | $20,500 | $100,000 |
| Medical, dental, law and the other professional degrees, later | $50,000 | $200,000 |
Grad PLUS, the loan that used to cover graduate study up to the full cost, ended on July 1, 2026. Parent PLUS used to have no ceiling at all. At three colleges in four that grant a bachelor's, four years costs more than $92,000, and whatever sits above the ceiling is private money: a credit check, a co-signer, a market rate, and none of the protections below. The school search prices every college at the rate a family would actually pay, in-state or out, against those ceilings.
Two things the cap is not. It is not $20,000 a year for four years: $65,000 spread evenly is $16,250 a year, and borrowing $20,000 for three years leaves $5,000 for the senior year. And it is not softened by the legacy rule that lets families already holding a Parent PLUS loan from before July 1, 2026 keep borrowing under the old terms for a while. A family borrowing for the first time in the fall of 2027 has no such loan.
How the student's loan is repaid
A loan made on or after July 1, 2026 has two repayment plans, and only two.
The Repayment Assistance Plan, RAP, the income-driven one. The payment is a percentage of adjusted gross income, the whole of it, with no living allowance subtracted first: 1 percent up to $20,000, one more point for every $10,000 above that, 10 percent from $100,000. Below $10,000 of income the payment is a flat $10, and that $10 is the floor of the whole schedule. Each dependent takes $50 a month off. Interest the payment does not cover is waived rather than added to the balance, and the government matches up to $50 a month against principal. Whatever is left after 30 years of payments is forgiven, and since January 1, 2026 a forgiven balance is taxed as income in the year it is written off. What that formula charges at seven incomes, against the plans it replaced.
The Tiered Standard Plan, the fixed one. The term is set by the balance when the loan enters repayment: 10 years under $25,000, 15 years from $25,000, 20 years from $50,000, 25 years from $100,000. A $27,000 undergraduate loan is a 15-year loan on this plan. Prepaying is allowed on either plan.
The repayment tool prices both on any balance, income and household, including the tax on a discharge.
How the parents' loan is repaid
Parent PLUS is not eligible for RAP or for any income-driven plan, and nothing is forgiven at the end. A parent repays on the Tiered Standard Plan alone, and the balance sets the term. The balance that counts is all of the parent's federal loans at the moment each loan enters repayment, so deferring until the student leaves school puts every loan on the term the total earns, and at the $65,000 cap that is 20 years. What the slow road and the fast road each cost, and the age at the last payment.
The FAFSA
The 2027-28 FAFSA opens on October 1, 2026 and reads the family's 2025 tax return, two years back. Its answer is the Student Aid Index, the number every college starts from when it decides what a family can pay, and this year's worksheet has two things in it worth knowing before the form is filed. The asset protection allowance is $0 at every parent age, so savings count from the first dollar, at 12 cents on the dollar in the top bracket. And state income tax gets no allowance at all; only federal tax does. This site's SAI estimator runs the published worksheet line by line from the same inputs the form asks for. A few hundred private colleges also collect the CSS Profile and count more, so at those schools the federal figure is a floor.
The dates
| When | What |
|---|---|
| September 30, 2026 | Last day to enroll in auto pay for the 1 point rate cut, if a parent or sibling already has federal loans |
| October 1, 2026 | The 2027-28 FAFSA opens |
| November 2026 | Early decision deadlines at the schools that offer it, before any aid letter |
| March and April 2027 | Aid letters |
| May 1, 2027 | The reply date |
| July 1, 2027 | The interest rate for the year applies to loans disbursed from this day |
| July 1, 2028 | The PAYE and ICR plans close; nothing a new borrower can be on |
The college money calendar has each date with what to do at it.
What is not on this sheet
The Pell Grant. The maximum award for 2027-28 is set by appropriations, and this site does not state a figure it could not verify.
The rate. Federal rates are set each spring for loans disbursed from July 1, so the rate a 2027 freshman pays is not known until May 2027. Every dollar figure in the calculator uses a stated assumption instead, and says so.
The credits rule. Federal loan eligibility now runs for the expected length of the program, counted by class standing, and schools set standing by accumulated credits, AP credits included. A student who arrives with a semester of AP credit can be counted a year further along than the classes they still need. Ask the aid office how it counts standing before the senior year.
Run the whole thing at once
The calculator takes the school, the major and the loan, applies every cap and plan on this page automatically, and measures the result against not going at all. On a phone it starts with six questions. Either way, the answer is on screen before anyone signs anything.