Student loans reduced for advanced degrees
By James Coburn, staff writer
The Trump administration no longer classifies nursing as a professional degree when it comes to graduate student loan applications. Changes are part of President Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA). Student loans for advanced graduate degrees in nursing will be reduced beginning July 1.
The U.S. Department of Education announced, “The definition of a “professional degree” is an internal definition used by the Department to distinguish among programs that qualify for higher loan limits, not a value judgement about the importance of programs. It has no bearing on whether a program is professional in nature or not.”
The new rules will cap loans based on whether the degree is deemed a graduate or professional program. Reduced borrowing programs include nursing, physician assistant, nurse practitioner, physical therapy, and audiology programs.
The Department stated the changes “place common sense limits and guardrails on future student loan borrowing and simplify the federal student loan repayment system.”
This news does not impact undergraduate nursing students’ ability to receive federal loans, said Gina Crawford DNP, MS, RN, CNE, Dean, College of Health Professions at Kramer School of Nursing Oklahoma City University.
“The concern is more about the potential impact it could have on nurses going back to school to advance their degrees. Our concern is our ability to be able to educate future nurses, nurse administrators, nurse practitioners — advance practice nurses,” Crawford said.
Student loan repayment plans will be replaced by a new Repayment Assistance Plan (RAP).
“Beginning in July 2026, the OBBBA caps annual loans for new borrowers at $20,500 for graduate students ($100,000 aggregate limit), and $50,000 for professional students ($200,000 aggregate limit) – a term the committee defined consistent with existing regulatory text. Previously, graduate students could borrow up to the cost of attendance, which led institutions to offer expensive graduate programs with a negative return on investment,” the U.S. Department of Education stated.
New rules will eliminate the Grad PLUS program which the department states fuel unsustainable student loan borrowing. Parent PLUS Loans will be capped.
Current students who have already borrowed a GradPLUS loan before July 1 will likely be grandfathered in.
According to the Department, “Since 2007, graduate and professional students have been able to borrow up to the full cost of attendance. This has allowed colleges and universities to dramatically increase tuition rates, even for credentials with modest earnings potential, which has saddled too many borrowers with debts they find difficult to repay.”
According to a 2021 National Center for Health Workforce Analysis:40.2% of the nursing workforce (1,750,277 RNs) have completed a second degree or advanced certificate since first entering the workforce.
• For nearly 2.0 million RNs who entered the workforce with a bachelor’s degree, 342,678 (17.3%) went on to obtain a master’s degree and 56,464 (2.9%) obtained a doctorate.
• RNs finance their education in a variety of ways, including using their own income or savings, taking out a student loan, obtaining a scholarship, or using employment benefits. 3.4 million RNs (78.2% of the workforce) indicated that they paid for at least part of their education using personal income and savings or money from family and friends.
• Nearly 2.0 million RNs (45.2% of the workforce) indicated that they used federally assisted student loans to finance at least part of their initial nursing degree, while 16.9% indicated that they used other (non-federal) student loans. In the previous survey, 38.3% of RNs used federally assisted student loans while 16.2% used other (non-federal) student loans.
One in six of the nation’s registered nurses held a master’s degree as of 2022, according to the American Association of Colleges of Nursing.
Capping federal student loans will force students to seek more expensive private loans and uproot the stability of patient care.
“When we’re talking about decreasing funding for nursing education in a time when we’re looking for affordability and access, I don’t know why we would take this away,” said American Nurses Association President Jennifer Mensik Kennedy, Ph.D., when interviewed on NewsNation. “So, we have a looming nursing shortage even greater than before. So, this is going to stop nurses from going to school to become teachers for other nurses. So, we need faculty for nursing. If we don’t have that we’re not going to be able to continue to teach nurses. And these are also for nurses who want to continue their education. We’re looking at men and women who are in communities that want to go back to school to be nurse practitioners to serve their communities when we’re in a shortage of tens of thousands of primary care providers.”
The nursing industry has not seen what the impact will be, but only speculate on what it could be, Crawford said.
“Keep chasing your dreams,” Crawford said. “Your heart led you to healing, now let it lead you to classrooms, leadership, whatever’s next. Someone out there needs what you’ll bring, and you can make a difference.”
