Kimberly Mann spent what felt like her whole summer reading applications for the social work master’s program at Chicago State University, where she is dean.
“All of these young, aspirational folks who want to change the world and make it better,” Mann said of the applicants. She has taught at the Far South Side university for 18 years.
“I vaguely remember being that person,” Mann added with a laugh.
Mann said she, like the applicants to her program, chose a career in social work to help others despite relatively low pay, long and intense hours and the requirement for a costly master’s degree. But Mann now worries that upcoming changes to federal lending will imperil that already fragile pipeline.
Signed into law in July, President Donald Trump’s legislative package — called the One Big Beautiful Bill Act — caps the amount of federal debt students can take on to pursue graduate degrees.
Starting July 2026, students will only be allowed to borrow $20,500 from the federal government per year. Master’s degrees in social work can cost upwards of $45,000 a year, particularly at private universities — and in most cases a graduate degree is needed to work in the field.
Conservative lawmakers who pushed for the caps hope they’ll incentivize universities to bring down their graduate tuition costs, which have more than doubled since 2000, according to Georgetown University’s Center for Education and the Workforce.
But higher education researchers say that is not realistic, especially because universities have been losing federal funding under the Trump administration. And the new borrowing caps don’t come with corresponding tuition caps, Peter Granville, a fellow at the left-leaning Century Foundation, wrote in a recent analysis.
“The rub is that colleges cannot reverse years of price increases overnight,” Granville wrote. “Students will still face high tuition bills and living costs despite the new borrowing limits, and they will shoulder the burden of this change if they want to continue to pursue higher education.”
Mann said most of her students work to pay their way through graduate school but also have to take out federal student loans to fund their degrees, just as she did.
“The student who comes in with that motivation and that desire because of their own lived experience to serve others — that same passion [didn’t necessarily come] with a bank account that had saved up all the monies that were needed,” said Mann, who grew up four blocks from Chicago State.
Federal loans have been a helpful resource for low-paying professions like social work that require master’s degrees. They don’t require a minimum credit score and have more affordable repayment options and lower interest rates than private loans.
Social workers in Illinois and across the country say the new limits will stymy efforts to get more people, especially those from diverse backgrounds, into their field. Nationally, there are far fewer social workers working than are required to meet the needs of communities.
“[The limits] could result in gaps and shortfalls,” Mann said. “For [students] who are already working and working full time and potentially trying to support a household and/or children and/or maybe even caregiving, all of whom we’ve met, those issues may be insurmountable. So that’s of course our greatest anxiety about it.”
Marissa Bohrer, a licensed clinical social worker who obtained her master’s degree in 2019, said the broader community will suffer too. She works in the Edgewater neighborhood on Chicago’s Far North Side.
“This is not just caps on student borrowing,” said Bohrer, who helps members of the LGBTQ-plus community cope with mental health challenges. “It’s going to mean fewer social workers in the field. [That’ll exacerbate] the mental health crisis that we already have in this country, which means increased violence, increased homelessness, increased utilization of social services like food pantries and things that are already so bogged down.”
Bohrer said the new limits leave aspiring social workers with two bad options: Abandon the career or take out private loans, which have higher interest rates, are less regulated and lack affordable, income-based repayment options.
“If I was choosing between a predatory loan service or not going to school, I really don’t know what I would have done,” Bohrer said.
Lisa Kurian Philip covers higher education for WBEZ, in partnership with Open Campus. Follow her on Twitter @LAPhilip.