Next generation of nurses at risk with proposed student loan caps

At a time of historic nurse shortages, aspiring healthcare workers might find it harder to get help paying for their degree.

Nursing advocates are raising alarms that a new set of proposed federal regulations could limit the amount of financial aid available to fund the next generation of nurses.

The concern stems from proposed new regulations the Education Department recently developed around limits to federal student loans.

Previously, borrowers in graduate programs could borrow up to the cost of attendance. But the One Big Beautiful Bill Act did away with Graduate Plus loans, as they had been known, and created separate loan limits between professional and graduate programs.

Under the proposed new regulations, borrowing is capped based on whether it’s a graduate or professional degree. The statutes still have to go through a public comment period, which isn’t expected to be finalized until sometime in 2026.

The new limits for graduate programs would be $20,500 a year and $100,000 in total. The limits for professional degrees would be $50,000 annually and capped at $200,000.

“Limiting nurses’ access to funding for graduate education threatens the very foundation of patient care,” Jennifer Mensik, president of the American Nurses Association, said in a statement.

The Education Department, as required by statute, formed a committee of public stakeholders to interpret how that legislation should be implemented. The agency reached a consensus on what those rules should look like, and the agency is expected to publish the proposed rules in 2026.

In a statement, the Education Department said “the purpose of loan limits was to address the nation’s growing federal student loan portfolio, which is nearing 1.7 trillion.”

The guidelines list 11 degree fields that meet its new definition of a professional degree.

Sarah Sattelmeyer, a project director at New America who studies higher education, anticipates questions as to what qualifies as a professional degree moving forward.

“It’s complicated, happening at the same time as a lot of other changes to the loans program, and being implemented incredibly quickly which is creating and likely will continue to generate confusion in the field,” she told USA Today.

The American Association of Colleges of Nursing raised concerns that some programs like a Master of Science Nursing or a Doctorate of Nursing practice would fail to meet the new criteria.

“Should this proposal be finalized, the impact on our already-challenged nursing workforce would be devastating,” the Nov. 7 post read.

The American Nurses Association has also called on the agency to include nursing in the list of eligible fields.

Preston Cooper, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute who studies higher education policy and federal student loans, said he believed students will still be able to afford their programs with the new limits.

For example, he referenced a recent analysis of student debt and earnings by Robert Kelchen, a professor who studies higher education finance at the University of Tennessee at Knoxville, which showed doctorates of nursing degrees typically produce graduates with debt around $70,000, about $30,000 below the limit for graduate degrees. (Kelchen also wrote he expected the department to be sued over its definitions.)

“Somebody is also going to be upset that they’re on the wrong side of that line,” Cooper said. “That was going to be inevitable no matter which definition the Department of Education came up with. I think they probably did as good a job as they could with the language there.”