Nursing organizations are sounding the alarm after the Department of Education moved to exclude nursing from its definition of a “professional degree,” a shift tied to the Trump administration’s overhaul of federal student lending.
The change stems from President Donald Trump’s “One Big Beautiful Bill Act,” a sweeping law signed earlier this year that restructures graduate student borrowing. Led by Education Secretary Linda McMahon, the new framework removes Grad PLUS loans—often used to cover the steep cost of graduate school—and sets tighter caps on how much students can borrow.
Under the law, graduate students are generally limited to $100,000 in federal loans. Only students enrolled in programs classified as “professional degrees” qualify for a higher cap of $200,000. By leaving nursing off that list, critics argue, the policy will make advanced nursing education unaffordable for many students and worsen the nation’s nurse shortage.
“Nursing is the backbone of the healthcare structure in the United States,” Dr Jennifer Mensik Kennedy, president of the American Nursing Association, told NewsNation. “We are short tens of thousands of nurses and advanced practice nurses already. This is going to stop nurses from going to school to be teachers for other nurses.”
The American Association of Colleges of Nursing has urged the Education Department to reverse course, saying the decision undercuts long-standing standards for health-profession education.
“Excluding nursing from the definition of professional degree programs disregards decades of progress toward parity across the health professions and contradicts the Department’s own acknowledgment that professional programs are those leading to licensure and direct practice,” the organization said in a statement. “Should this proposal be finalized, the impact on our already-challenged nursing workforce would be devastating.”
National Nurses United also criticized the administration’s direction. Mary Turner, RN, the union’s president, said the priorities reflected in the policy clash with what nurses and patients need.
“If the Trump administration truly wanted to support nurses, it would be working to improve working conditions, expanding education opportunities, and ensuring patients can get health care,” Turner told The Independent. “Instead, this administration is stripping nurses of their union rights, making education harder to access, and cutting health care for those who need it most.”
The debate comes as the costs of nursing education continue to rise. A four-year bachelor of science in nursing can total roughly $89,560 to $211,390 when tuition, housing, and fees are included, according to NurseJournal. Nursing advocates warn that limiting loan access at the graduate level will shrink the pipeline of nurse practitioners, educators, and specialized clinicians.
Supporters of the rule argue the department is simply applying a consistent definition. The Education Department dismissed the backlash as overblown, with press secretary Ellen Keast saying the classification follows long-standing precedent.
“The Department has had a consistent definition of what constitutes a professional degree for decades and the consensus-based language aligns with this historical precedent,” Keast told Newsweek. “The committee, which included institutions of higher education, agreed on the definition that we will put forward in a proposed rule. We’re not surprised that some institutions are crying wolf over regulations that never existed because their unlimited tuition ride on the taxpayer dime is over.”
The Department of Education did not immediately respond to a request for comment from The Independent.
Nursing is not the only field left out under the proposed definition. Other programs excluded from “professional degree” status include physician assistants, physical therapists, educators, social workers, audiologists, architects, and accountants.
Programs that remain classified as “professional” include medicine, pharmacy, law, dentistry, osteopathic medicine, optometry, podiatry, chiropractic, veterinary medicine, theology, and clinical psychology.
The move has drawn political criticism as well. On X, Amy McGrath, a Kentucky U.S. Senate candidate, questioned the logic of the list. “Can someone explain how a theologian is considered more “professional” than a nurse practitioner?” she wrote. She added that the reclassification disproportionately affects female-dominated fields, calling it “a way to quietly push women out of professional careers.”
The new lending limits are scheduled to take effect on July 1, 2026.
