Emiliana German Roman was too young to vote when she took out her first student loan. She was 17, a first-generation Dominican American and a first-generation college student.

She worked her way through college and earned two scholarships, picking away at her school’s $70,000 tuition, but there was still a huge gap. In 2022, she graduated cum laude from Stonehill College in Easton with a bachelor’s degree in criminology, sociology, and speech-language pathology — and more than $20,000 in federal student loan debt.

Now program coordinator for the City of Boston’s office of food justice, 25-year-old German Roman feels the weight of that debt every day.

“I’m at an age when people are advancing in their careers, starting families, buying houses,” she said. “[The debt] takes a huge emotional and financial toll. I’m very pro-active, I create budgets. On every spreadsheet, I have to budget for this dark cloud.”

German Roman is one of the nearly 43 million Americans who collectively hold more than $1.7 trillion in student loan debt, 90 percent of which is federal loans. That debt disproportionately affects people of color and women, weighing on their career prospects, family decisions, and ability to build wealth, ultimately exacerbating economic inequality.

Recent efforts by the Trump administration and Republican-led Congress to restrict access to federal student loans may deepen these disparities. By limiting funds historically under-represented communities have relied on, students of color and women may be pushed toward private lending or skip higher education altogether.

As part of the “Big Beautiful Bill,” signed by President Trump on July 4, federal loans for medical and law students will be capped at $200,000, below the median cost of attending medical school and the average cost of attending law school. Graduate student loans will be capped at $100,000, and Parent PLUS loans, which allow parents to take out loans for their children’s undergraduate education, will be capped at $65,000. All federal student loan borrowers will have a lifetime limit of $257,500.

The bill also limits repayment options, with fewer flexibilities, restricted pathways to debt forgiveness, and faster repayment requirements.

According to the Student Borrower Protection Center, an advocacy and research group, all students, regardless of income or whether they’ve completed their degree, will face higher monthly payments as a result of these changes.

According to the American Enterprise Institute, a leading conservative think tank that has supported efforts to restrict federal student lending, the changes “will save taxpayers $307 billion over a decade” and “could also rein in the growth of tuition, prevent excessive interest accumulation on student debts, and hold colleges accountable for poor student outcomes.”

Outside of the legislation, the Trump administration is also seeking to restrict who can qualify for Public Service Loan Forgiveness, and, on Aug. 1, is restarting interest accruals for millions of borrowers who saw these fees paused under the Biden administration.

The Student Debt Crisis Center, a separate advocacy group, estimates these fees will amount to about $300 a month. Already 5 million Americans have defaulted on their student loans, with another 2 million projected to default this month. Natalie Abrams, president and founder of the debt crisis center, now expects these numbers to grow.

“This is a bad bill for borrowers,” she said.

Advocates who have been raising alarm bells for years about rising student debt are now stuck in a strange position: Advocating for federal loans to continue, while also calling for major changes to the system through debt cancellation and lowered tuition.

On its face, the Republican-led series of changes seems to acknowledge concerns about the country’s student debt crisis. Proponents claim that by restricting access to loans, there will be downward pressure on school costs, which are growing: In-state tuition at UMass Amherst, for example, cost $1,129 for the 1983-84 academic year ($3,644 in today’s dollars) and as of 2024-25, ballooned to $15,091.

But critics counter that in the face of federal loan caps, borrowers will rely on higher-priced, more risky private loans, or skip school altogether.

Borrowers of color, who generally have less family wealth to tap into and are therefore more reliant on student loans, will be hurt the most. According to a report published by the Student Borrower Protection Center, 90 percent of Black students and 72 percent of Hispanic or Latino students take out debt, compared to 66 percent of white students. There’s also a gender divide, with nearly two-thirds of the country’s student debt held by women, according to the American Association of University Women.

Student debt diminishes the ability of historically under-represented communities to build generational wealth, diverting money that could go toward savings, retirement, or investing in big-ticket items that traditionally fuel family wealth, such as homes. One study found that the racial wealth gap tripled among college-educated families from 1989 and 2013, with debt acting as a major driver of the increasing chasm.

“Generations of systemic racism have forced Black and brown folks — especially Black women — to borrow at higher rates than our white peers and bear an enormous financial burden, denying us the opportunity to succeed and build generational wealth,” Representative Ayanna Pressley told the Globe in an emailed statement.

The Trump administration’s stricter lending limits mean ”fewer people who are not already rich will be able to go to college, and the people who still need to get education and training that are not already rich are going to be targeted for predatory private loan projects,” said Eileen Connor, executive director of the Project on Predatory Student Lending, a legal and policy organization focused on predatory for-profit colleges and lenders that started at Harvard Law School.

“There’s been a fair amount of talk about Trump policies leading to resegregation,” said Persis Yu, deputy executive director and managing council at the Student Borrower Protection Center, an advocacy group that aims to improve the loan system. “And I think this is part of that project.”

Amina Khamsi will be starting her third year at Boston University School of Medicine this fall. Originally from El Paso, Texas, Khamsi, who is a first-generation immigrant with Moroccan and Colombian roots, has already taken out nearly $120,000 in federal student debt, which has accrued nearly $10,000 in interest.

She’s already considering whether she can afford to stay in Boston for residency, and worries doctors will have to reconsider whether they can work in underserved communities, where positions pay less, if they have to take on more private debt.

“You are forcing people to make decisions not based on ethical practices or how they want to practice medicine, but ‘how am I going to cope with this,’” she said. “I fear in the long run we’re going to have less doctors who look like me, who look like a lot of patients across America, and that could have detrimental effects to health care.”

Private lenders seem primed for the potential influx. In the weeks leading up to the legislation’s passage, Sallie Mae placed articles in Politico calling for caps on federal student lending. The CEO of Navient, a major private student lender, told investors the company would “take our fair share” of the market.

As students consider their now whittled-down options, German Roman encourages them to be informed.

She doesn’t regret going to college, but she does regret taking on debt, even as she feels she should consider herself lucky, since the $20,000 she owes is half the national average. She agrees with Yu, who wants to move away from a higher education system fueled by debt and toward tuition-free college.

“No one is arguing for the status quo,” said Yu. “But until there is a real investment in higher education, both on the federal and state level,” millions of students and their families will continue to rely on federal debt, with now-tightened conditions.

“These proposals,” Yu said, “are going to make the crisis worse, not better.”

This story was produced by the Globe’s Money, Power, Inequality team, which covers the racial wealth gap in Greater Boston. You can sign up for the newsletter here.