Project 2025 Tracker / What’s done, what’s next

5. Department of Homeland Security · Notable

Deny federal student loans to non-citizens and to in-state-tuition schools

Not started

167 5. Department of Homeland Security

“Department of Education: Deny loan access to those who are not U.S. citizens or lawful permanent residents, and deny loan access to students at schools that provide in-state tuition to illegal aliens.”

What has happened

  1. Not started

    Nothing found. Federal student loan eligibility still turns on the Higher Education Act's citizen-or-eligible-noncitizen test, and the Department of Education's rulemaking over the window has been about loan limits, repayment plans and Public Service Loan Forgiveness, not about citizenship. On the second half of the ask, H.R. 2490 -- which would amend section 505 of IIRIRA to prohibit title IV assistance to States offering in-State tuition rates to aliens not lawfully present -- was introduced on 2025-03-31 and referred to Judiciary and to Education and Workforce. Introduction and referral is the bottom rung.

Research log

What was searched, and what didn’t count as evidence

Research notes

Not started, with what Congress actually did recorded in the Status history. Bill text read at govinfo in the introduced-in-House version.

One negative search covered the other departments’ asks on p. 167.

  • Federal Register full-text search over the window for “in-State tuition” returns two documents, neither an Education rule; for “student loan” with “lawful permanent resident”, one, a DHS nonimmigrant-student rule.

  • Education’s title IV rulemaking in the window (2025-15665, 2025-19729, 2026-04978, 2026-08556, 2026-17001) implements Public Law 119-21’s loan limits and repayment plans and the PSLF employer exclusion; none of it touches citizenship or in-State tuition.

  • The administration has litigated against States’ in-State tuition statutes through the Justice Department, which is a different instrument aimed at a different party and is not this ask.

  • Unified Agenda, 2026-09-01. Education’s full Unified Agenda was read at reginfo.gov (2026 agenda, 19 RINs), not the abbreviated Federal Register version. No entry conditions loan eligibility on citizenship or on a school’s in-State tuition policy. The nearest is RIN 1840-AE04, Addressing Title IV Eligibility Issues, OPE, Prerule Stage (notice of intent to commence negotiated rulemaking scheduled 07/2026), which is about institutional eligibility — change of ownership, cash management, administrative capability, program length, financial responsibility and the 90/10 rule — and not about who may borrow. An entry in the ask’s subject area that does not name its object does not count, so the Status does not change. https://www.reginfo.gov/public/do/eAgendaViewRule?pubId=202510&RIN=1840-AE04

Action
restrict
Object
federal student loan eligibility
ID
456