Unprofessional

Administration plans to cut federal loans for nursing education

In November 2025, the Trump Administration proposed to limit loans for graduate students in nursing and other predominantly female fields by excluding them from the category of “professional” programs. Such a policy would be damaging and unjustified, as a December 2025 letter from more than 100 Members of Congress pointed out. Join us in opposing the new policy!

December 12, 2025 – On November 24, 2025, the Associated Press reported that the Trump Administration planned to impose new caps on loans available to graduate students in nursing and certain other health fields, such as social work, on the basis that those programs are not “professional” in nature. Programs in medicine and other traditionally male fields would be permitted much higher caps. The AP piece, by Collin Binkley and John Seewer, explained that the proposed new rules would be implemented by the Department of Education, although they had roots in the “big beautiful bill,” a.k.a. Billionaire Welfare Bill, passed by Congress earlier in the year. The new rules would take effect in July 2026. The piece did a good job of highlighting objections to the proposal by nurses, who have argued that the plans would exacerbate the current global nursing shortage, and that the re-designation itself is insulting, which it obviously is. There appears to be no reasoned basis for the planned distinction among fields. And it’s hard to avoid the conclusion that it’s really based on misogyny—most traditionally male fields like medicine, pharmacy, and law are “professions,” and traditionally female fields like nursing, social work, and physical therapy are not. For nursing, even apart from the direct economic effects, the proposed change reinforces the damaging stereotype that nurses are low-skilled handmaidens. (In an oddly encouraging twist, the Onion ran a satirical item mocking the proposal with the headline “White House Reclassifies Nursing As Hobby”; we’re glad the popular website finds this notion so absurd as to be funny.) The Administration’s claim that the impact of the move on nursing would be minimal is unpersuasive. Also unpersuaded was a group of more than 100 Members of Congress, who sent a letter urging the Department to reverse course and correctly designate nursing as a profession. We thank the AP for this helpful report.

A smack in the face

The AP article was headlined “Trump administration plan to reduce access to some student loans angers nurses, health care groups.” It explained that the Department of Education had released a new proposed rule to impose caps on loans for future graduate students, loans that were previously limited, apparently, only by the cost of the relevant degree. And the new rule would define only certain types of programs as “professional” ones that merit higher caps, imposing much lower caps on other, presumably “unprofessional” programs, and thereby limiting students’ access to critical funds. The piece noted that this change is “part of” the “big beautiful bill” passed early in 2025, but does not explain how. In fact, it appears that the bill mandated that the Department impose the disparate loan caps but did not specify which degrees were “professional” as opposed to merely “graduate.” The AP item reported that the new rules would take effect starting in July 2026. Under the plan, the following graduate programs would be considered “professional” ones for which students could borrow up to $50,000 per year and $200,000 total: pharmacy, dentistry, veterinary medicine, chiropractic, law, medicine, optometry, osteopathic medicine, podiatry and theology. Fields not on that list, and so subject to much stricter caps of $20,500 per year and $100,000 total, include nursing, physical therapy, occupational therapy, public health, dental hygiene, audiology, counseling, speech pathology, and social work, as well as non-health care fields including education, architecture, engineering, business, and accounting. According to the AP, the basic distinction was drawn from a 1965 law that included several examples (but not an exhaustive list) of “professional” degrees—in 1965, of course, the advanced practice registered nurse positions that account for most graduate nursing degrees did not yet exist. But by all means, let’s make current policy based on what people thought in 1965; we suppose it’s better than 1865.

The administration’s defenses of the plan, at least as reported in the piece, are weak. The Department claims that it wants to reduce tuition costs, and that loan caps would push expensive universities to charge less. That seems debatable as a general idea, but in any case, there is no basis to think that most “graduate” programs would reduce the current cost to $20,500 per year. Does the administration believe that the programs on its non-professional list, like nursing, cost only 40% as much per year as the “professional” fields, and that their programs are only half as long? That is often not the case. Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP) programs are typically four years, like medical school. Yet law school, for one, is only three years.

The Department also claims that 95% of nursing students would not be affected by the caps, and that the vast majority of graduate nursing programs cost less than the $100,000 aggregate cap. But the letter from Members of Congress pointed out that some specific nursing programs cost more than $20,500 per year, and others cost more than $100,000 in total. The letter noted that most programs to train certified registered nurse anesthetists cost more than $100,000, and that they can cost more than $200,000. In addition, it noted, many APRN programs continue over three full-time semesters in a calendar year, thereby exceeding the $20,500 annual cap. We note that the Johns Hopkins DNP program, for instance, which goes 3 semesters per year, has an estimated annual cost of $104,000. That is far beyond the $20,500 yearly cap, and even beyond the $100,000 aggregate cap, in just one year. But to the extent that the new caps would affect only a small minority of nursing students, that would mean that the potential savings would also be minimal, suggesting that that is not the real basis for the distinction.

Data and advocacy from nursing groups indicate that the effects of the proposed rule could actually be substantial. The AP piece noted that 2022 data from the American Association of Colleges of Nursing (AACN) showed that 1 in 6 U.S. RNs had at least a masters degree. A group of health care organizations has reportedly urged the Department not to adopt the planned rule. They noted that the excluded fields are in demand and filled mainly by women, who make up about three quarters of full time U.S. health care workers, and even more in certain fields like dental and medical assistants. Those groups, along with the AACN, argued that the new caps would exacerbate the nursing shortage. The piece concluded with quotes from Susan Pratt, a nursing union president in Ohio, who argued that making it harder for young people to advance in nursing would push them away from the profession.

It’s just a smack in the face. When we were during the pandemic, the nurses showed up, and this is the thanks we get.

This strong quote gets at the great intangible harm the new rule would cause to nursing. There is potential harm to individual nurses trying to pay for their educations, to nursing schools trying to educate nurses, and to patients who would benefit from more highly educated nurses. But beyond that, a designation that nursing programs are not “professional” seems like a misogynous insult to a profession that has historically made great sacrifices for others, often to its own detriment. 

The AP might have added that for nursing, the proposed designation reinforces a related stereotype that has long held the profession back—the notion that nurses are not skilled, autonomous professionals, but low-skilled helpers. The piece might also have explained a little about why nurses are in fact highly-skilled professionals by any reasonable definition, as nursing is an autonomous, self-governing profession and scientific field with a wide scope of practice that saves lives and improves patient outcomes on a daily basis.

The letter from Members of Congress does this to an extent. It explains how graduate nursing programs meet the Department’s own description of what a professional degree is, and it also emphasizes the vital role APRNs play in providing primary care, especially for Medicare beneficiaries, persons in rural areas, and other underserved communities. In addition, in case there is any confusion, nurses are not professionally supervised by physicians or any other group, but by senior nurses, and nurses are governed by their own state practice acts and ethical codes.

The struggle for federal recognition of nursing’s true nature is of course nothing new. For example, in 2024 two Philadelphia nursing professors led an effort to persuade federal agencies to recognize the profession as a “STEM” (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) field, which would increase nurses’ access to funding and other benefits.

Still, we thank the AP for this generally helpful report.

See the article by Collin Binkley and John Sewer, “Trump administration plan to reduce access to some student loans angers nurses, health care groups,” published by the Associated Press on November 24, 2025.

Please join us in sending a letter to the Department of Education on or before March 2, 2026! Ours is below. If you don’t have time to write one of your own, please feel free to use ours as your own. You can copy and paste into the comment section of the DOE’s form, or attach a pdf file, as you would like. Thank you!

Letter to Dept. of Education re “professional” category for graduate loans Docket (ED-2025-OPE-0944), Amendment § 685.203

Dear Decision-Makers at the Department of Education:

I urge you to recognize the professional nature of nursing and to not impose loan caps on graduate nursing students that are lower than those set for other professions like medicine. I am referencing Docket (ED-2025-OPE-0944), Amendment § 685.203. Please enable highly skilled nurses to continue saving lives and improving outcomes in a variety of settings—including underserved rural communities—as the nation’s health care system faces critical funding cuts that make graduate-prepared nurses more vital than ever.

First of all, nursing meets any reasonable definition of a “profession.” Nursing is an autonomous, self-governing profession and a distinct scientific field with a unique scope of practice. Physicians do not supervise nurses, including direct care registered nurses, who report only to senior nurses and are governed by their own state practice acts and ethical codes. And as the December 12, 2025 letter from Members of Congress to Undersecretary Kent explained, advanced practice registered nurses play a vital role in providing primary care, especially for Medicare beneficiaries, persons in rural areas, and other underserved communities. 

Imposing the caps envisioned by the proposed rule would have a devastating impact on nurses and their patients. Contrary to the Department’s suggestions, imposing the lower caps for nursing would greatly harm graduate nursing education and likely prevent many promising students from obtaining it. Data from the American Association of Colleges of Nursing makes clear that the great majority of graduate nursing programs and students would be significantly affected by the proposed caps. In fact, even loans at the level of the higher caps to be imposed on professions like medicine would be insufficient to finance many graduate nursing programs. The harm caused by these caps would be especially acute at a time when the nation is experiencing a nursing shortage that threatens patients’ lives and the wellbeing of practicing nurses, who face rampant understaffing and other challenges every day.

Finally, the proposed exclusion of nursing from the “professional” designation is an obvious insult to millions of U.S. nurses who work hard to make the nation healthier, often at great personal cost. It reinforces the enduring stereotype that nurses are low-skilled physician handmaidens, rather than the highly-skilled professionals they really are. And that message is in and of itself a threat to public health, because it undermines public understanding of the profession and therefore its claims to adequate resources and respect across the board.

Please recognize that nursing is a “profession” that needs and deserves the same resources, including student loan support, as any other. Thank you.

Sincerely,

Sandy Summers, RN, MSN, MPH
(Degrees obtained with government loans, which were fully repaid)
Executive Director, The Truth About Nursing

Please click here to go to the comment page to send a comment

deadline March 2, 2026

Please refer to Docket (ED-2025-OPE-0944), Amendment § 685.203

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