331: How the “Big Beautiful Bill” Impacts Grad School Funding for Low-Income and First-Gen Students

331: How the “Big Beautiful Bill” Impacts Grad School Funding for Low-Income and First-Gen Students

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: [00:00:00] If you're a low income first gen student and interested in applying to graduate school in 2025 and beyond, odds are you're probably facing a lot of financial uncertainty. And then with all the recent changes that come with our current administration. You're probably feeling even more anxious, even more confused, even more uncertain about the future of graduate education and how it might impact you and your experience and your ability to secure funding.

That's where I come in. I recently shared a social media post about how the "big beautiful bill" will impact low income first gen students pursuing graduate school. And to my surprise, it unintentionally went viral. I had over 20 K people who viewed that post, and it received traction across LinkedIn, across, Instagram.

And it reminded me, hold up, hold [00:01:00] up. A lot of people are interested in learning more about this, so I should probably record an episode on this. So if you are one of those people that engaged with that post, then you're at the right place. You're gonna wanna tune in 'cause I'm gonna share all the details about how this new bill might impact your funding options for graduate school and what you can do to take back control of your ability to pursue graduate school while minimizing or avoiding altogether any student debt.

Welcome to the award-winning grad school Femtoring podcast. The place for first gen Bipoc to listen in on inclusive grad school stories and learn about personal development and productivity tips. This is Yvette Martinez Vu, a certified coach, consultant and author, and [00:02:00] I will be serving as your Femtoring, providing you with insider knowledge to help you reach your personal and professional goals. Dra.

Yvette Martinez-Vu: Welcome back everyone to another episode of the Grad School Femtoring podcast. This is your host, Doctora Yvette Martinez-Vu, and let's talk about what's happening right now. There was this bill that

was signed. It is called the Big Beautiful Bill.

We can call it the Big Ugly Bill. There's a lot of different components to the bill, but for the purpose of this episode, I'm only gonna be talking about the implications for access to funding for graduate programs. Okay? I am not gonna be talking about all the other details of the bill.

I'm talking about funding, student loans, graduate school. Okay. So [00:03:00] how is this going to affect your ability to pursue a master's program, a PhD program, even other programs like professional programs? So what's the biggest change?

The biggest change we're noticing is the elimination of graduate plus loans. These are federal loans that a lot of us who are. Low income and first gen have had to rely on to cover the gap between the tuition and the very little funding that's often offered for masters and other professional programs. And the reason why we've needed those loans is because his historically, over time we have had less and less access to an affordable education.

And this has been intentional, so. The elimination. The elimination of the graduate plus loan is a big deal [00:04:00] because previously they had no borrowing limit for this loan. It was a federal loan, which means you had certain protections in terms of how high the interest rate was or even having some student loan forgiveness options, et cetera.

So that was a safety net for a lot of folks, and that's no longer. There what is going to be there instead? Are. Caps, so you'll still have access to student loans, but you will be capped.

So it looks like it's going to be capped at about $20,000 per year or a hundred thousand dollars over your educational lifetime for access to federal loans. This, I'm not talking about private loans, that's a completely separate story, but just FYI. I don't recommend taking on private loans. And also, this is educational, by the way.

I'm not giving y'all financial advice. [00:05:00] Don't, please don't come at me. This is all educational information, but just FYI in terms of what I would do, I would avoid private loans altogether because, ugh, they, you don't have as many securities. You know, the interest rates tend to be really high.

They tend to be more predatory. They're just not out to try to help you out. They're out to get as much money out of you as possible. So avoid that altogether if you can, or at least that's what I would do.

And by now, you might be thinking, is that going to be enough to cover graduate school plus my living expenses plus tuition, plus any other expenses that are unexpected that might come up in graduate school. And the answer for that is maybe why is it a, maybe it really depends on. What type of program you're applying to and where you're applying to. [00:06:00] So for example, let's talk about the differences between master's and PhD programs.

So with master's programs, they tend to have. Less funding options. It's very, very rare to find a fully funded master's program nowadays, and usually the folks that are able to make it work, they are pulling together multiple different funding sources from external scholarships, external fellowships, to on-campus assistantships to, they're just like constantly hustling and applying for funding just to make sure that they can get as much covered as possible. But the odds of you getting accepted to Master's program and they say.

Yay, here you go. As a full funding offer, you won't see that in master's programs where you will still see that is in PhD programs. PhD programs typically fund their students for the duration of their time in their program, and that comes in the form of a multi-year funding package. And that funding package is comprised of [00:07:00] institutional funding that comes from the greater camp.

And departmental funding that comes from the program, the department itself, and it's usually a combination of teaching assistantships, research assistantships, and fellowships. The fellowships come from the greater university. And if they have fewer fellowships than you might see that your funding offer includes more of the assistant ships. And yes, sometimes master's students can also apply for these assistant ships too to get their tuition covered and receive an hourly wage.

Now, if you are fully funded in your PhD program, then there will be no need to. Access any student loans, there will be no need to rely on federal loans, and so you will not be necessarily. Impacted by the big beautiful bill. But in any case, what we are seeing nationwide is that there are a lot of [00:08:00] very substantial budget cuts.

There are budget cuts everywhere. It's impacting me and my business. It's impacting my clients. It's impacting basically everyone I'm in community with that is affiliated with higher ed in some way, shape, or form.

Form. We are all impacted. By these substantial budget cuts. And what that means is that.

Even if the PhD program you apply to guarantees funding, there might be some programs that might not accept students because this year they can't offer funding. Or there might be some programs that will provide more assistantships and less fellowships, which means you'll be working. More of the time that you're in graduate school, in exchange for them paying your tuition and an hourly wage instead of working on your research solely and getting that fellowship money to work on your research. So.

I want you to be aware of these changes. I want you to be aware of the budget cuts. I want [00:09:00] you to be aware of the elimination of the graduate plus loans. I want you to be aware of these student loan caps so that you can make a plan, and this also means taking into account cost of living.

[Section: Grad Admissions Consulting Services]

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That's both strategic and culturally responsive. Whether you're just getting started or finalizing your materials, I'm here to help you move forward with clarity and confidence. Together we can work on building your strategic and aligned grad school list. Refining your standout cv, drafting a compelling personal statement, preparing to ace your interviews and even negotiating funding offers.

I meet you exactly where you are in the [00:10:00] process and provide real time guidance and feedback every step of the way. All of my consulting packages include access to my graduate admissions resource library, as well as email and voice memo support. In between sessions past clients have gone on to get admitted to top programs, won prestigious fellowships. And most importantly, submitted applications that they felt proud of.

If you're ready to apply with confidence, visit grad school fm train.com/consulting to learn more and book a free consultation today. One of my clients recently asked me how important should I take location and cost of living into account as I search for graduate programs? And I told her that it really depends because you don't really know how much funding they're gonna give you and how that compares to the cost of living in that area, but. Once you reach a point [00:11:00] where you've applied and you have an offer and they give you that stipend amount, then you can compare that to the cost of living.

And even with that, I, I encouraged her, like, if it's something that concerns you, you can take a look and do some research. What is a, what is a one bedroom or a studio or whatever type of space she believes she will live in? What is that? Cost.

What does it cost to rent that space and add it to her grad school list spreadsheet so that later on when she gets a funding offer, she can do that comparison of. Well, how much are they offering me? How much does it cost me to live here? Am I gonna be expected to take on student loans or not?

Can I make it work? So I want you to be strategic in terms of thinking, okay? This is not just about going to graduate school by any means necessary. This is about figuring out how can I make it work, especially if I have to go to graduate [00:12:00] school to pursue.

My career of interest, so long story short, for PhD programs, the funding landscape still looks more favorable. And it's the most favorable, I'm gonna be frank, in STEM fields. STEM fields still carry the, the big load of access to funding even to this day. That's not to say you won't get funding in other programs.

It just means there's a lot more internal external funding for STEM students. Now for master's programs, this is where I hate to be the bearer of bad news. It. It is challenging to secure funding.

It's not impossible. It just means that it's going to be part of your job as a student to regularly be applying for scholarships and fellowships to pull enough funds to cover. Your expenses and your tuition. This is assuming that you don't [00:13:00] wanna take on any student debt, and so just keep that in mind because the tuition can range widely, and this is also not just tied to cost of living.

This is also something to consider is the differences between. Public and private institutions, you might be better set at least financially if you pursue a master's degree at a public university than at a private university because tuition can be as low as. 12 to 20 KA year for a public university, and then you might see 30 to 60 KA year at a private university. And so that's gonna add up fast and that's gonna be a lot more than even what the funding caps are for student loans.

So keep that in mind. Keep in mind, what type of program are you applying to? Master's versus PhD. Keep in mind cost of living of that area.

[00:14:00] And keep in mind public versus private institutions. Of course, you wanna keep in mind the other important things like making sure that it's the right program with the right professors and that it meets your needs in terms of non-negotiables. But if one of your non-negotiables is funding, this is also very important to look to look at too. Now, let me think about other ways, just other advice that I can give you when it comes to navigating the financial aspect of graduate school.

So if you're pursuing a PhD program, the good news is that there are still ample funding options available to you. I definitely would not encourage you to accept a PhD award letter or offer with little to no funding. So make sure that you apply and get admitted and that you have a full funding [00:15:00] offer. Talk to people.

Sometimes you can get a sense of whether or not this program provides full funding just by talking to graduate students alone. Sometimes even by talking to the professors, some of them will be honest with you about that. Now, if you're considering a master's program, you do need to take a lot more action. You, you will.

Need to apply for a lot more external sources of funding, a lot more scholarships, a lot more fellowships, because few of them offer internal funding, internal support. So start researching what are the scholarships and fellowships in your field that you'll be able to apply to at the same time that you're applying to Master's programs. Also talk to grad students. Ask how they're funding it.

They might know of other funding sources that you're not familiar with. Some of the research based master's programs may have more funding than professional programs, so that's something else [00:16:00] to consider because the research based programs sometimes provide assistantships, and I'm trying to think about what other programs just in general. Make sure that you are thinking beyond just, oh, I'm applying to graduate school and I'm gonna assume that I'm gonna be okay financially. Just to be honest, this is how I went to graduate school.

I, I applied to graduate programs. Thinking about the financial implications. I went to college not thinking about the financial implications, why I did not have access to financial literacy. And because I didn't, I didn't know what I signed up for.

I didn't, I, I didn't know the implications of the student loans I took out as an undergrad. Thankfully I had a fully funded PhD program, so I made one right decision. I accepted the PhD over a very. Lucrative and competitive master's program that I could have pursued with that [00:17:00] came with very, very minimal funding.

So at the very least there was that, but I didn't do that. Comparison of cost of living versus what the stipend was that they had given us, et cetera. So, yeah. Make sure that you're thinking beyond just your department or your campus about where you can access funding.

Make sure that you look into professional organizations. Take a look at. Any, even though there's an anti DEI backlash right now, there are still some diversity focused scholarships and grants available. So you can look for that.

You can look at state level funding programs. You could even look into some of y'all that listen to me. Your working professionals. So do your employers provide any kind of sponsorship or.

Benefits that pay for tuition. You can also look at [00:18:00] things like, does this campus offer emergency funds or discretionary funds? Because that's also something you may have to tap into in the future. So all of this to say that.

Learn from me that it's important to look into your options. Now, just because there is this big ugly bill doesn't mean that you can't go to graduate school. It does mean you have to be more informed, more intentional, more strategic, and. It.

When in doubt, lean into your mentors. Lean into your community. Talk to people. I can't emphasize this enough.

I tell people all the time, and sometimes they don't listen to me. You have to talk to folks. Guess how I'm navigating my career right now By talking to folks. I talk to my peers and we will openly share like, how much are you getting paid for this?

How much are you getting paid for that? What's your rate for this? What's your rate [00:19:00] for that? We exchange info, and that's how we're making things work, is by supporting one another.

Likewise, your pursuit of graduate school. There are people that have your back that wanna support you, that wanna share info with you. So if you're feeling a little bit overwhelmed or uncertain, lean into others. I have people who reach out to me all the time, and one of the things that I say is that I'm always happy to share.

Info. So I'll direct them to resources, whether it's a relevant blog post or a podcast episode, or sometimes external resources too. If I don't have the resources to share, I will direct them to the places where they can access resources. Why?

Because I don't believe in gatekeeping. Yes, I do have to set limits on. My use of time, because physically I have capacity limits, and so I can't be giving my time for free the way that I used to be able to when I was a salaried employee.[00:20:00]

But I can give information for free and that's why I recorded this episode. So if if this episode resonated with you, please, please, please share it with the friends so that they too are aware of the changes that are coming up.

That are going to impact graduate admissions, your access to funding come next year and beyond and leave me a comment or a review to let me know that this was helpful because I always love hearing from you all. That's it for today's episode, and as always, I'll talk to you, y'all next time. ​thanks so much for listening. If you liked what you heard, here are three ways you can support the show.

The first is to make sure you're subscribed and leave a review on Apple Podcasts. The second way is to get your copy of my free resource kit linked in my show notes. This kit includes tools, [00:21:00] playlists on all things grad school, productivity, and personal development. The third way to support my show is to follow me on social media.

You can find me on Instagram with the handle at gradschoolfemtoring and on LinkedIn by searching my name. Thanks again for listening. And until next time.