which type of loan has a higher borrowing limit, a subsidized or unsubsidized loan?

An unsubsidized federal student loan generally has the higher borrowing limit compared with a subsidized loan.

Quick Scoop

• Subsidized loans cap how much you can borrow at a lower amount because they are need-based and the government helps pay interest while you are in school.

• Unsubsidized loans let you borrow more overall; for example, dependent undergrads can borrow up to about $31,000 total in federal loans, but only about $23,000 of that can be subsidized, meaning the rest must be unsubsidized.

• For independent undergrads and graduate students, unsubsidized limits are even higher, and graduate students are only eligible for unsubsidized federal loans with aggregate limits that can exceed $100,000.

So, if the question is “which type of loan has a higher borrowing limit, a subsidized or unsubsidized loan?” the answer is: unsubsidized loans almost always come with the higher borrowing limit.

Information gathered from public forums or data available on the internet and portrayed here.