U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal visited Southern Connecticut State University Monday to promote a bill undoing the recent reduction in federal student loans for part-time students.
As of July 1, part-time college and university students can only receive direct student loans proportional to their enrollment. In other words, a student taking 50% of a normal course load only gets 50% of a normal loan. Blumenthal described the new rule — part of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act of 2025, which also included tax cuts primarily for higher-income households — as “students lose and billionaires win.”
The problem with the change, Blumenthal said, is “part-time students have full-time costs.”
Those may include financial pressures traditional full-time students don’t have, such as childcare. Many students enroll part-time because they have to work to support themselves and their families and they need the full federal loan to make their education pencil out.
Other leaders in higher education have leveled the same criticism at the new rule.
Blumenthal said he introduced the Restoring College Access and Affordability Act to undo this and other changes the OBBBA made to federal financial aid. So far, he said, the bill has seven cosponsors, all Democrats.
That may be an issue in the Senate, where Democrats are in the minority and 60 votes are needed to bypass a filibuster. However, if Democrats regain the Senate this fall, Blumenthal said the bill “will be one of the very top priorities.” He said it could even end up getting bipartisan support if the upper chamber flips.
“Assuming that we have 51 votes in the Senate among Democrats, yes, I think we get nine Republicans,” Blumenthal said.
If the new rule stands, Blumenthal said, he expects it will “inevitably” lead students to drop out of school entirely.
Former part-time students previously told the Connecticut Mirror the loan reduction would likely have prevented them from obtaining degrees.
Nilvio Perez, interim associate vice president for enrollment management at Southern, said 22% of students there are enrolled part-time. Perez said the school is doing what it can to keep students enrolled. That includes educating students on their new financial reality and providing “internal resources” — namely scholarships from the university’s foundation.
But, Perez said, “we don’t have unlimited resources, and then we don’t know how many students will be impacted as the semester starts.”
Perez said he’s also concerned about what will happen to students who start a semester full-time but then have to scale back their enrollment. Under the new rule, dropping a class will also trigger a change in their loan eligibility.
“That creates an immediate financial gap they’ll have to figure out how to cover, most likely through a much higher interest rate, and much more difficult-to-attain, private loan,” Perez said.
