Higher Education Act of 1965 Amended, Higher Federal Loan Limits!

[Asherah, BSN, RN]

For those of us who are taking advantage of federal Stafford/Direct loans, you may not have known that several pieces of legislation have been processed through the House/Senate and Executive branches of government within the past few weeks. If you hadn't heard yet, H.R. 5715 (in conjunction with Senate bill S.2815) was signed by the President amending the Higher Education Act of 1965. Essentially, this raises the federal Stafford/Direct loan limits by $2,000 annually and also raises the lifetime maximum that an undergraduate student may borrow.

There are other details of the final bill that was passed, which can be found here, if you love reading those types of things: http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d110:HR05715:@@@L&summ2=m&

Now I realize there are many folks around here who are quite proud of themselves for funding their education out of pocket (and you should be), but for those of us who utilize federal loans to finance our nursing education (or decrease our need for private loans) my purpose was to post and raise awareness.

The financial aid office of my school didn't have exact details however they did state that it is almost certain that these changes would impact financial aid awards for the upcoming Fall 2008 term. Any of you who utilize Federal Stafford (or Direct Loans) may wish to contact your Financial Aid officer for further information.

I'd also like to state, that although raising loan limits/availability is a positive thing for most students and may allow nursing education to become more accessible, it is important to remember that you should only borrow what you need!

:)