Working families in Maryland woke up July 1 to higher prices at the pump and new wage mandates squeezing small businesses, while a separate federal overhaul of student loans threatens to lock ordinary Americans out of graduate school entirely.
The state's gasoline tax automatically ratcheted up to 46.6 cents per gallon, with diesel hitting 47.5 cents, according to Baltimore News and WJLA. State officials say the revenue funds road and bridge maintenance. For a commuter filling up twice a week, that's real money leaving the paycheck — money that doesn't come back.
Meanwhile, Montgomery County raised its minimum wage to $15.95 an hour for small businesses with 10 or fewer workers, with even higher rates for larger employers under the county's tiered system. County Executive Marc Elrich framed it as simple logic: "Federal minimum wage is still $7.25. And I think anyone with half a brain, maybe even quarter of a brain could figure out that no ones going to live on $7.25, at least not decently."
Elrich's bluntness is refreshing, but he left out the other side: business groups have expressed concerns about higher labor costs, both outlets noted. A wage hike sounds great until it's your corner store or local restaurant figuring out how to cover the tab.
Virginia piled on with a statewide ban on Styrofoam food containers, extending the mandate to all remaining food vendors regardless of business size, WJLA reported. Small takeout shops now eat the cost of pricier packaging — or pass it to customers.
The Student Loan Squeeze
At the federal level, the Trump administration's student loan overhaul went live July 1, killing the Biden-era SAVE plan and forcing roughly 7 million borrowers to switch repayment plans within 90 days, KABC-TV reported. New borrowers now face only two options: the Repayment Assistance Plan or the Tiered Standard plan.
More consequential are the new borrowing caps. Graduate students pursuing master's degrees can now borrow only $20,500 per year or $100,000 total. Professional students — law, medicine — get $50,000 per year or $200,000 total. Parent PLUS loans carry a new $65,000 lifetime cap.
The Education Department says the caps will "curb excessive borrowing and force institutions to evaluate their costs." But critics across the spectrum warn the limits won't cover tuition, housing, and living expenses combined — pushing students toward private lenders with higher rates and fewer protections.
CBS News highlighted Benjamin Pinckney, a 46-year-old Army Reserve medic who survived a drive-by shooting and dreamed of becoming a physician assistant. The new caps may make that impossible. Todd Pickard, president of the American Academy of Physician Associates — one of several groups suing the Department of Education — called it an overcorrection: "It'd be like if you had a hangnail and I cut your whole arm off instead of just taking care of your hangnail."
A federal judge temporarily blocked the department's definition of "professional degree" on June 24, CBS News reported, but the core caps remain.
KABC-TV noted that the Institute for College Access & Success found the median U.S. household could see defaults spike and premiums rise by hundreds of dollars monthly under the new RAP plan. The question neither party wants to answer honestly: why does higher education cost enough to bankrupt people in the first place?
