If you're taking out a new federal student loan for the 2026-27 school year — meaning it first disburses between July 1, 2026 and June 30, 2027 — you're locking in a slightly higher rate than last year's borrowers got. * Undergraduate Direct Stafford Loans carry a fixed rate of 6.518%, up from 6.392% the year before. Graduate students borrowing through the Direct Stafford program pay 8.068%. Grad PLUS loans and Parent PLUS loans, used to cover costs beyond what Stafford loans allow, both carry the highest rate at 9.068%. * These rates aren't set by a committee's opinion on the economy — they're calculated by a formula written into federal law. Each year's rate equals the high yield of the 10-year Treasury note at the last auction before June 1, plus a fixed add-on percentage that's different for each loan type. This year's 10-year Treasury yield came in at 4.468%, which is what pushed all four rates up slightly from 2025-26. * Whatever rate you're assigned the year you first borrow stays fixed for that loan's entire life — it doesn't reset annually like a variable-rate product. If you borrow again in a later year, that new loan gets whatever the rate formula produces for that specific year, which means a single student can end up with several different fixed rates across their loans by graduation.