On July 4, 2025, President Donald Trump signed into law the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, a sweeping legislative package that combines tax cuts with significant reductions to federal social safety net programs, major changes to student loan policy and stricter immigration enforcement measures.
While headlines have largely focused on the bill’s tax implications, many in the rising generation are beginning to reckon with the broader and more personal effects this legislation will have — especially in low-income, immigrant and student communities.
“Everyone’s question is ‘what’s going to happen to my money and your money,’ and that’s what most of the mainstream news covers because that’s what people care about,” California high school student Sophia Bella said. But for millions of young people, the true impact lies elsewhere.
Students and the cycle of debt
One of the most consequential and least understood changes in the bill is its overhaul of student loan programs. Subsidized loans, which do not accrue interest while a student is in school, are being phased out. Instead, interest will begin immediately for student loans. The bill also limits federal loan forgiveness options and steers more students toward private lenders, who aren’t subject to the consumer protections offered by federal programs.
The bill isn’t the first time Trump has taken action against loan forgiveness programs. In May, he signed an executive order seeking to reverse Biden-era relief programs.
High school student Ini Akin-Olukunle lives in Bloomington, Indiana, home of Indiana University. The impact on students in the college town will be significant, he said.
“This is horrible for students who can barely make living wages in Bloomington where the average job pays about $10 an hour,” Akin-Olukunle said. “This repeats the cycle of debt and makes finishing college close to impossible.”
Cuts to Medicaid and SNAP
The Big Beautiful Bill enacts over $800 billion in cuts to Medicaid, the program that allows low-income Americans to also receive medical treatment. To compensate for these reductions that will arrive over a ten-year period, the bill reduces eligibility for Medicaid, increases work requirements for those seeking care, and adds new copays.
Lawfully-present immigrants and Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals recipients will also lose access to Medicaid, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (also known as “food stamps”) and select Affordable Care Act subsidies by 2027 under new immigration restrictions embedded in the bill.
“I’m from a low-income, single-parent, immigrant household, and we greatly benefit from Medicaid,” Akin-Olukunle said. “It covers basic checkups and emergency visits and things of the sort — a good amount of my friends from lower-income parts of Indiana also benefit from that.”
The changes are expected to result in the disenrollment of millions of people from government health programs, with little to no alternative care options in place. For DACA children, who were illegally brought to the U.S. by their parents at a young age, the bill provides no replacement provisions, abruptly leaving over half a million without healthcare. Instead, the children will be forced out of doctors’ offices and into the nation’s overcrowded and shuttering emergency rooms — now the only place they can seek professional care — impacting others more, not less.
“They’d be going into debt from medical expenses — like a good amount of Americans do,” Akin-Olukunle said, “but they are already in debt from paying for legal expenses to plead their cases to immigration offices with the hope of one day being granted green cards.”
Immigration enforcement and economic fear
Alongside its economic provisions, the bill invests over $350 billion into immigration enforcement. This includes funding for expanded deportation operations and new detention centers. The bill also creates new legal restrictions aimed at narrowing the definition of “asylum,” converting legal immigrants into illegal ones.
For many immigrant families, this represents not just a fiscal threat but a personal and emotional one.
According to the National Immigration Law Center, an estimated 1.8 million lawfully present non-citizens, including many children and DACA recipients, will lose access to government benefits by 2027 despite being full, tax-paying residents. And while supporters argue this measure reduces costs and encourages self-reliance, advocacy groups have warned of increased hardship, health crises and educational barriers that will accrue and spill over into other aspects of American life for decades to come. The billions spent on ICE could be spent elsewhere — on education or infrastructure, for example — limiting the rising generations’ tax dollars.
Tax cuts and credits
The bill locks in key provisions of the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, including the expanded standard deduction, revised tax brackets and business-friendly deductions. It raises the Child Tax Credit from $2,000 to $2,200 and introduces so-called “Trump Accounts” — tax-advantaged savings accounts for families with newborns.
While technically available to all income brackets, Lu believes the benefits skew heavily toward the wealthy.
“Tax cuts are for everyone, but it’s severely beneficial for the rich,” California student Connie Lu said. “The way tax bracketing works is very confusing for most people to understand — but maybe that’s the point.”
Critics also contend that the newborn savings accounts are actually less effective versions of programs the federal government already offers.
According to the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center, with the Big Beautiful Bill, the top 1% of earners will receive an average tax cut nearly 50 times greater than what a median-income family will see, exponentially impacting inequality for the rising generation.
With political discourse increasingly shaped by algorithms and social media, meaningful policy analysis is often lost in the noise. But the effects of the bill are not abstract; they are immediate and deeply human.
“A lot of students in high school are performative in reposting and liking news about the Big Beautiful Bill without actually knowing what it does and who it affects,” Lu said.
The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office projects the bill will add between $2.4 trillion and $4 trillion to the federal deficit by 2034, depending on how the provisions are implemented.
So while older generations debate fiscal policy and tax advantages, our generation must ask: Who does this bill help, who does it leave behind, and at what everyday costs?
Whether it’s a student struggling to fund college, a family losing Medicaid coverage, or a young person reposting a headline without reading the bill, the One Big Beautiful Bill is not just a political loss; it’s a generational turning point.
