Skip to content
What Will Students and Parents Do This Fall? episode artwork

Feb 17, 2026 27 min

What Will Students and Parents Do This Fall?

from PPM

Fall 2026 is shaping up to be a financial aid cliff. If you're a grad student, parent of a college student, or a current professional school attendee, the shifts in borrowing limits, repayment plans, and the fate of Grad PLUS loans could seriously affect your finances and your future. Listen in as I answer listener questions and then pivot to the big question: what happens if you (or your kid) take out even one new federal loan after July 2026? Key moments: (00:42) PSLF Buyback: Which tax years might determine your payment? (05:48) The tax-extension strategy to keep a lower IDR payment for another year (11:53) Taking out just one loan after July 2026 blocks you from everything but the RAP plan (15:18) Parents borrowing on behalf of a child face especially bad news (18:23) Should you gamble your financial future? The "retire with defaulted Parent PLUS loans" strategy Like the show? There are several ways you can help! Follow on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or Amazon Music Leave an honest review on Apple Podcasts Subscribe to the newsletter Join SLP Insiders for student loan loopholes, SLP app and member community Feeling helpless when it comes to your student loans? Try our free student loan calculator Check out our refinancing bonuses we negotiated Book your custom student loan plan Get profession-specific financial planning Do you have a question about student loans? Leave us a voicemail here or email us at [email protected] and we might feature it in an upcoming show!

Episode details come from the podcast's RSS feed.

Embed this episode

Ready to play

What Will Students and Parents Do This Fall?

0:00 27:14

No transcript yet.

Requests help us decide what to transcribe next.

Frequently asked questions

How long is this episode of PPM?

This episode is 27 minutes long.

When was this PPM episode published?

This episode was published on February 17, 2026.

Can I download this PPM episode?

Yes. Use the download control on the episode player to save the publisher-provided media file.