Overview
- Under the proposal, only designated professional programs would qualify for up to $50,000 a year and $200,000 total in federal loans, while other graduate students would be capped at $20,500 annually and $100,000 lifetime.
- The draft list counts medicine, pharmacy, dentistry, optometry, law, veterinary medicine, osteopathic medicine, podiatry, chiropractic, theology and clinical psychology as professional fields, excluding nursing along with physician assistant, physical therapy and audiology programs.
- The Education Department says a stakeholder committee reached consensus on the language in early November and that a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking will be published for public comment before final rules are issued in 2026.
- Nursing groups including the American Nurses Association and the American Association of Colleges of Nursing warn the change would limit access to master’s and doctoral training, strain the nurse faculty pipeline and reduce primary care access in rural and underserved areas.
- The department defends the approach as consistent with longstanding definitions and as placing commonsense limits on borrowing, while some coverage notes officials contend many nursing programs cost below the new graduate cap.