DETROIT (WXYZ) — Families preparing for college are facing one of the biggest federal financial aid shakeups in years. The Free Application for Federal Student Aid, or FAFSA, is shorter and designed to be easier to complete, while new federal borrowing limits are raising concerns about how some students will cover the full cost of attendance.
Detroit-native Anita Martinez recently completed the new FAFSA with her high school senior Analeise.
“I’ve seen all iterations of (FAFSA),” Martinez told me. “Before, it was very long and cumbersome. You had to pull out two years’ worth of your taxes and manually input all the information.”
This year, she said the process only took about 40 minutes.
The streamlined form contains no more than 36 questions, down from more than 100, and can pull tax information directly from the IRS.
The changes also exclude family farms and small businesses with 100 or fewer employees from asset counts, expand Pell Grant eligibility to qualifying short-term workforce and trade programs and set a hard Pell Grant cutoff for students with a Student Aid Index of $14,790 or higher.
I asked Theresa Cry, a college coach in Southeast Michigan, what change is concerning metro Detroit parents the most this fall.
“If students are even going to be able to go to college,” she replied.
The new rules that went into effect on July 1, 2026 in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act cap federal Parent PLUS loans at $20,000 per year and $65,000 over the lifetime for each dependent student, although some current borrowers may be grandfathered in under previous limits.
For new graduate and professional students, Grad PLUS loans are eliminated, ending the option to borrow up to the full cost of attendance.
Federal borrowing for standard graduate programs is capped at $20,500 per year with a lifetime cap of $100,000.
For approved professional programs, the loan limits are $50,000 per year with a $200,000 lifetime cap. The higher professional-program tier is limited to 11 approved fields, including medicine, dentistry, law and pharmacy.
RESOURCE: Complete the FAFSA and review federal student aid information at StudentAid.gov.
“Have you heard of any cases of professional students who have to change their plans?” I asked Cry.
“I have. I’ve heard of a dental student who now has a $50,000 gap,” she replied. “He’s going to drop out.”
Her advice?
Complete the FAFSA as soon as possible to learn what aid a student is eligible to receive, contact prospective schools about institutional assistance and then plan around any remaining gap.
“There has never been a time where I've seen students and families so nervous about what's next,” Cry said.
Families should also check each school’s deadlines. Although the federal filing deadline for aid for the next fall term is June 30 of 2027, some colleges set much earlier dates for admission, scholarships and financial aid consideration.
The University of Michigan, for example, has a Nov. 15 deadline for early-decision applicants, while Lawrence Technological University uses rolling admissions, meaning applicants are accepted in the order they apply.
