A Sea Change Expected for Pell Grant Students in Maryland

Maryland Higher Education Commission members were warned Wednesday of a potential “huge sea change” for the state’s financial aid systems, as Pell Grant eligibility shifts as a result of changes under the “One Big Beautiful Bill” act.

Commission members were also briefed on new limits on loans for students in professional programs, and changes on the process for approving student visas. But the changes to Pell Grants, the state’s single largest source of federal student financial aid, consumed much of the meeting.

President Donald Trump’s “administration has actually called for deep cuts to education and education programs,” said Tom Harnisch, vice president for government relations at the State Higher Education Executive Officers Association. “We are working to push back against those cuts because we know those programs, be it the Pell Grant program or other federal student aid programs, are absolutely essential for students, and not only student access to higher education, but also completion and helping them throughout their college journey.”

More than 45,000 students across the University System of Maryland received a Pell Grant in fiscal 2024, totaling more than $204 million in aid. About 58,000 students across the system received any kind of federal student aid that year.

Another 6,200 students at state-aided private institutions in the state, such as Johns Hopkins University, McDaniel College or Hood College, got Pell Grants in fiscal 2024.

The total impact of the changes is still unclear — experts Wednesday even differed on who might be affected by the new rules.

Harnisch said that, according to the information he had received from the Senate, the changes in Pell Grant eligibility will mostly affect students with full-ride, athletic scholarships at Division I universities.

But the bill makes no specific mention of athletic scholarships. Rather, it says that beginning July 1, 2026, a student is ineligible for a Pell Grant for “any period for which the student receives grant aid from non-Federal sources, including States, institutions of higher education, or private sources, in an amount that equals or exceeds the student’s cost of attendance for such period.”

Commission members said that, under their reading, the state’s financial aid would now have to be calculated without first considering funds from Pell Grants.

Currently for some state aid, like the Howard P. Rawlings Guaranteed Access Grant, the formula for determining student need is “Pell first,” said Al Dorsett, of the commission’s office of student financial assistance.

“Based off this change, we’ll have to determine the students’ need before Pell is actually considered,” he said.

Commission Chair Cassie Motz said “that would be a huge sea change for Maryland.”

Deputy Higher Education Secretary Elena Quiroz-Livanis added that the timeline for Maryland to change its student aid regulations as a result of the new legislation is “just frankly insufficient.”

“But it is also unclear just exactly what it is that we’re being charged to implement, just again, because we have to go through negotiated rulemaking,” she said. “So it’s not the best place to be in, given all of the changes that we’re trying to enact here in Maryland.”

Motz emphasized that the commission must work alongside other states and with institutions within Maryland.

“We have to come together,” she said. “We need to be very tightly aligned with our institutions of higher education — two-year, four-year, public, private, all of them — because this is a big change.”

While the legislation also allocated $10 billion for the Pell Grant program over the next two years, Harnisch said, there is not enough funding for the program to continue long-term at its current level.

“We’re looking at a long-term Pell Grant shortfall that’s either going to require new investment from Congress or eligibility restrictions or reduction in the maximum Pell award,” Harnisch said. “Historically, Congress has not reduced the maximum Pell Grant award, but they have done eligibility restrictions.”

Commissioners also raised concern with new limits placed on unsubsidized federal loans for students in professional programs such as medical school or law school starting next year.

Under the new law, Harnisch said that students in professional programs will be limited to $50,000 a year in federal loans, to a lifetime limit of $200,000, in addition to their undergraduate student loan caps. Commission Vice Chair Chike Aguh said that those limits could  constrain on fields such as life sciences, which he described as one of Maryland’s “lighthouse industries.”

“Most of the doctors that I know who are borrowing fully are coming out with far more debt than that,” Aguh said. “So the question I think about is, OK, then where are they going to make up that gap?”

Harnisch said that physicians who studied at a public institution typically come out with $250,000 in loans or more — $300,000 if they went to a private school. Once they reach the cap for federal loans, they will have to look to the private market to cover the rest, he said.

Speakers Wednesday also highlighted the impact of other federal policy changes, such as new student visa rules.

“Obviously the big change here over the past six months are these visa cancellations,” said Kamal Essaheb, senior adviser and director of immigrant affairs to Gov. Wes Moore.

Essaheb added that the State Department resumed interviews for new student visas in late June, after suspending them  this spring, but subject to new rules. He said that vetting applicants social media is now “an explicit part of the process,” which also “requires applicants for these visas to both reveal what their social media accounts are, and also make them open to the public.”

Other changes the duration of student visas, Essaheb said. Instead of “duration of status” visas, that granted non-residents entry to the U.S. for as long as it took them to complete their course of study, new visas would have a set expiration date under a proposed new rule. Students who got sick or changed their program might be forced to leave the U.S. and reapply for a visa to return under the new rule.

Essaheb added that there will also be an updated fee schedule for applications. At a minimum, he said, visa applicants will have to pay $250 to receive the paperwork.

“There may be folks who are finding out about some of this information for the first time later in the process, right after they’ve received admission and accepted an offer and are then going through the requisite paperwork,” he said. “The rapidly evolving immigration policy landscape makes it hard for people to not only know their rights, but also their legal obligations.”

Maryland Higher Education Secretary Sanjay Rai said that “despite the challenges higher education may be facing due to policy changes and other external disruptions, we will continue to stand firm in our mission to keep students and their needs at the forefront of our work.”

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