Outrage has erupted as a widely recognized college course has been left out of the ‘professional degree’ category by the Department of Education.
According to the ‘One Big Beautiful Bill Act’ introduced during President Donald Trump’s administration, students enrolled in ‘professional degree’ programs can obtain student loans up to $200,000, whereas those in non-professional degree courses are capped at $100,000.
Nursing is one of the fields excluded from the ‘professional degree’ classification, sparking concern among organizations who argue that this exclusion could compromise patient care.
Currently, there are over 260,000 students in Bachelor of Science in Nursing programs and 42,000 in Associate Degree in Nursing courses throughout the United States, leading to worries that this decision might reduce the number of nurses nationwide.
“Nursing is the backbone of the healthcare structure in the United States,” stated Dr. Jennifer Mensik Kennedy, president of the American Nursing Association, in an interview with 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 expressed in a statement: “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.
“Should this proposal be finalized, the impact on our already-challenged nursing workforce would be devastating.”
Whether nursing has historically been considered a professional degree remains unclear, but its omission in the context of student loans marks a pivotal change.
Ellen Keast, the Department of Education’s press secretary for higher education, conveyed to Newsweek: “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.
“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 has classified fields like medicine, pharmacy, law, dentistry, osteopathic medicine, optometry, podiatry, chiropractic, veterinary medicine, theology, and clinical psychology as ‘professional’.
However, professions such as physician assistants, physical therapists, educators, social workers, audiologists, architects, and accountants have not received this classification.
Further information has been sought from the Department of Education regarding this matter.