Public frustration is growing after the Department of Education announced that one of the nation’s most common college majors will not be classified as a “professional degree,” a decision expected to influence federal student loan limits.
Under President Donald Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act, students enrolled in programs officially recognized as professional degrees may borrow up to $200,000 in federal loans. All other academic programs are limited to $100,000.
One notable omission from the approved list is nursing, a choice that major health organizations warn could worsen staffing shortages and compromise patient care across the country.
More than 260,000 students in the U.S. are currently working toward a Bachelor of Science in Nursing, while an additional 42,000 students are enrolled in Associate Degree in Nursing programs. Many educators and healthcare leaders fear that lowering loan eligibility will discourage new applicants at a time when the national nursing shortage is already severe.
“Nurses are the backbone of America’s health care system,” Dr. Jennifer Mensik Kennedy, president of the American Nurses Association, told NewsNation.
“We are already short tens of thousands of nurses and advanced practice nurses. This will prevent people from entering nursing education, including those training the next generation.”
The American Association of Colleges of Nursing also condemned the Department’s decision. In a statement, the group said:
“Excluding nursing from the professional degree category reverses decades of progress toward parity among health professions and contradicts the Department’s own definition that professional programs lead to licensure and direct patient care.
If adopted, this proposal would be damaging to an already overstretched nursing workforce.”
It is unclear whether nursing programs have ever been formally defined as professional degrees in the past, but the new classification now directly determines federal borrowing limits — giving the decision much greater weight.
Ellen Keast, press secretary for higher education at the Department of Education, defended the ruling in comments to Newsweek:
“The Department has applied the same definition of ‘professional degree’ for many years, and the current language remains consistent with that history. The committee — which included representatives from higher education institutions — supported the definition we are presenting.
We are not surprised that some institutions are objecting to rules that never existed simply because their ability to charge unlimited tuition to taxpayers has ended.”
According to the Department of Education, the fields that currently qualify as professional degrees include medicine, pharmacy, law, dentistry, osteopathic medicine, veterinary medicine, optometry, podiatry, chiropractic care, theology, and clinical psychology.
