About This OBBBA Resource
An independent reference hub for students, parents, and financial aid professionals navigating the federal student aid changes introduced by the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (P.L. 119-21).
What This Site Does
FAFSA Guide 2026 translates the legislative text and FSA guidance of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act into plain-English explanations and interactive calculators. Every policy value displayed on this site is sourced from a single versioned JSON policy file (docs/obbba-policy.json) to prevent drift from the statute.
The site covers the primary OBBBA provisions effective July 1, 2026: Parent PLUS loan caps, Graduate PLUS loan elimination, the new Repayment Assistance Plan (RAP), Workforce Pell Grant for degree holders, legacy borrower protections, and updated FAFSA verification rules.
Interactive Calculators
RAP vs. Legacy IDR Comparator
Side-by-side monthly payment and lifetime cost comparison across RAP, IBR, PAYE, ICR, and SAVE/REPAYE using the OBBBA §4101 AGI-based payment formula.
FAFSA Legacy Borrower Status Checker
Step-by-step questionnaire that determines whether a borrower is grandfathered under legacy OBBBA provisions or subject to new caps.
Federal Pell Grant Eligibility Calculator
Estimates the 2026-27 annual Pell Grant based on Student Aid Index (SAI), with a full lookup table.
Parent PLUS Loan Gap Calculator
Quantifies the annual funding gap when the OBBBA $20,000/yr cap falls short of Cost of Attendance.
Workforce Pell Grant Screener
Checks whether a short-term career program meets the OBBBA criteria for bachelor's degree holders.
All calculators are client-side only. No data you enter is transmitted to any server.
Operator
Moises Lopez
Educator · 10+ years LAUSD & nonprofit · Independent FAFSA Researcher
My name is Moises Lopez. I spent over a decade as an educator — teaching and working in student support roles across Los Angeles Unified School District and several nonprofits serving underrepresented youth. During that time, I watched students and families struggle every year with the FAFSA: missing deadlines they didn't know existed, misreading aid letters, leaving money on the table. Federal student aid is one of the most consequential systems in a young person's life, and it is also one of the most poorly explained.
I built this site in response to the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA), which introduced the most significant changes to federal student aid in decades. The new Parent PLUS caps, Repayment Assistance Plan, Workforce Pell track, and legacy borrower rules affect millions of families — and when the law passed, plain-English explanations were almost nonexistent. I read the statutory text of P.L. 119-21, the FSA Dear Colleague Letters, and the NASFAA guidance directly, and built this resource so that the people I used to teach — and their parents — could actually understand what changed and what it means for them.
This site is an independent personal project and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by the U.S. Department of Education, Federal Student Aid (FSA), LAUSD, or any government agency. It is not a law firm, financial advisory service, or official aid counseling resource.
Contact
If you have questions about the data used on this site or want to suggest an update, use the contact form.
Primary Sources
Policy values are derived from the following official and authoritative sources, as recorded in docs/obbba-policy.json:
Always verify current Federal Direct Loan limits and repayment plan options at studentaid.gov before making financial decisions.
Policy data last updated: 2026-05-21 (obbba-policy.json). Site legislation reference: P.L. 119-21 (H.R. 1), signed July 4, 2025.