Trump Removes Nursing From Professional Degree Status

In a rule finalized on May 1, 2026, the Trump administration’s Department of Education removed graduate nursing from professional degree status, a classification that decides how much students can borrow from the federal government. The reclassification means students in master’s and doctoral nursing programs face annual and lifetime federal loan caps roughly 60% lower than students in medicine, dentistry, law, and eight other fields that kept the professional label. A federal court blocked key parts of the rule just before it was set to take effect on July 1, 2026, leaving the policy in legal limbo.¹

What the Reclassification Changes

The One Big Beautiful Bill Act, signed on July 4, 2025, eliminated the Graduate PLUS loan program that had let graduate students borrow up to the full cost of attendance. In its place, Congress created two borrowing tiers effective July 1, 2026. Students in “professional degree” programs may borrow up to $50,000 per year and $200,000 over a lifetime in federal loans. Everyone else in graduate school is capped at $20,500 per year and $100,000 total.²

Which tier a student falls into depends entirely on the Department of Education’s definition of “professional degree.” On November 6, 2025, the department’s Reimagining and Improving Student Education (RISE) committee settled on a list of 11 qualifying fields: pharmacy, dentistry, veterinary medicine, chiropractic, law, medicine, optometry, osteopathic medicine, podiatry, theology, and clinical psychology.³ Nursing was left off, along with physician assistant, physical therapy, audiology, social work, and education.⁴ After a public comment period, the department published the final rule on May 1, 2026, keeping nursing out.¹

Which Nursing Students Are Affected

The lower caps apply to post-baccalaureate nursing programs: the Master of Science in Nursing (MSN), Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP), research-focused nursing PhDs, and specialized tracks preparing nurse practitioners, certified registered nurse anesthetists, certified nurse-midwives, and clinical nurse specialists.⁵ Undergraduate nursing programs, including associate’s and bachelor’s degrees, are not affected by the new graduate caps.⁶

Current students get a limited reprieve. If you were enrolled in a graduate nursing program as of June 30, 2026, and had received a federal loan disbursement for that program before July 1, 2026, you can keep borrowing under the old rules for up to three academic years or the time remaining to finish your credential, whichever is shorter.⁷ New enrollees after that date face the lower caps. The state lawsuit challenging the rule also alleges that the department improperly excluded students who transfer institutions or withdraw and re-enroll from this grandfathering.⁸

The financial gap matters most in the most expensive programs. A bipartisan group of over 150 lawmakers cited survey data showing average annual costs for nursing students near $38,500, well above the new $20,500 annual federal cap, and reported that 75% of nurses surveyed said certified registered nurse anesthetist education would no longer be financially feasible under the reduced limits. Eighty-two percent of nursing students said the $20,500 annual cap would negatively affect their ability to finance their education.⁹

Why Nursing Was Excluded

The mechanism was technical. To qualify as professional under the department’s framework, a program had to share a four-digit Classification of Instructional Programs (CIP) code with one of the 11 designated fields. Nursing programs sit within the broader health-professions CIP series but do not share a four-digit code with medicine, dentistry, or the other listed specialties.⁷ That coding difference, more than any judgment about the work nurses do, is what put nursing on the lower tier.

The Department’s Defense

The Department of Education has argued the label is a bureaucratic sorting tool, not a verdict on nursing. In a “myth versus fact” release, the department said the professional degree label is “an internal definition used by the Department to distinguish among programs that qualify for higher loan limits” and has “no bearing on whether a program is professional in nature or not.”⁶

The department’s central statistical claim is that 95% of nursing students currently borrow below the new annual and aggregate caps, so most would see no reduction.⁶ Under Secretary of Education Nicholas Kent said the goal is to “put pressure on universities to lower tuition costs” and prevent unmanageable debt.¹⁰ Education Secretary Linda McMahon made a similar argument.¹¹

Critics counter that the 95% figure ignores the elimination of Grad PLUS loans, which had previously served as a backstop for students who exceeded the base limits. Higher education finance expert Robert Kelchen of the University of Tennessee noted that professional and graduate students previously shared the same base loan limits, but Grad PLUS filled the gap between those limits and the cost of attendance. That gap-filler is gone, and the new law creates a hard ceiling where none existed before.¹²

The American Nurses Association, whose petition against the rule gathered more than 200,000 signatures, noted that no nurse representative sat on the RISE committee that produced the definition.¹³ Representative Jen Kiggans, a nurse practitioner, wrote to Secretary McMahon that excluding nurses while including chiropractic and theology failed to treat nursing “with the same level of professional seriousness” as other healthcare disciplines.¹⁴

The Court Order That Paused Key Parts of the Rule

Days before the July 1, 2026, effective date, a federal court blocked the mechanism that had excluded nursing. In American Association of Nurse Practitioners v. McMahon, Judge Beryl A. Howell of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia issued an emergency ruling on June 23, 2026, granting a partial nationwide stay of the final rule.¹⁵

The stay blocked several of the department’s added criteria:

The requirement that a professional degree be “generally at the doctoral level.”
The mandate for at least six academic years of postsecondary education.
The four-digit CIP code alignment rule that had been the mechanism excluding nursing.
Preamble language stating that a professional degree program could not lead to employment supervised by another professional.
The conversion of the list of professional fields from illustrative to exhaustive.

The court left the 11 enumerated fields in place but treated the list as non-exclusive, restoring the broader three-part test from the 2007 regulation at 34 C.F.R. § 668.2 as the operative standard. The ruling did not itself declare nursing to be a professional degree. Until the department issues further guidance under the restored standard, the 11 listed fields remain the only ones for which institutions can currently certify students at the higher borrowing limits.¹⁶

The court ordered both sides to propose a schedule for further proceedings by July 2, 2026. The stay remains in effect until a final decision on the merits, and the department can appeal.¹⁵

The Multistate Lawsuit

A parallel challenge is moving through federal court in Maryland. On May 19, 2026, twenty-five states and the District of Columbia sued the department in State of Maryland et al. v. United States Department of Education et al., Case No. 26-cv-1957. The complaint argues the department violated the Administrative Procedure Act by adding requirements not found in the statute, including the doctoral-level status, credit-hour thresholds, and CIP code groupings. The states also contend the rule is arbitrary and capricious and that the department improperly narrowed the grandfathering protections Congress wrote into the law.⁸ The American Nurses Association and nine other nursing organizations filed their own federal lawsuit in June 2026.¹⁷

Where Things Stand for Graduate Nursing Students

As of mid-2026, the picture is unsettled. The court’s stay has blocked the criteria the department used to exclude nursing, but it has not affirmatively placed nursing on the professional list. The Maryland lawsuit is proceeding separately. Graduate nursing programs and their students face real uncertainty about which borrowing limits will apply for the 2026-27 academic year, and institutions are waiting for further guidance from the department before advising incoming students on their financial aid options.¹⁶ If you are already in a program, confirm with your financial aid office whether you qualify for the grandfathering window. If you are applying now, ask the school directly what limit it plans to certify you under, and how it will handle a change if the litigation shifts the ground again.

1
Federal Register. Reimagining and Improving Student Education Federal Student Loan Program Final Regulations
2
NASFAA. OBBBA Loan Changes Brief
3
American Hospital Association. Department of Education Issues Proposed Rule Updating Definition of Professional Student
4
Wisconsin Public Radio. Nursing Not Considered Professional Degree Under Trump Administration
5
American Association of Colleges of Nursing. AACN Alarmed Over Department of Education’s Proposed Limitation of Student Loan Access for Nursing
6
U.S. Department of Education. Myth vs. Fact: Definition of Professional Degrees
7
NASFAA. Making Sense of the Student Loan Changes From OBBBA’s RISE Committee
8
New York Attorney General. State of Maryland et al. v. United States Department of Education Court Filing
9
Senator Jeff Merkley. Merkley, Wicker, Kiggans, Bonamici and 150 Lawmakers: Changes to Nursing Student Loans Threaten Profession
10
WTTW News. Trump Administration Moves to Exclude Nursing From Professional Degrees, Set New Student Loan Limits
11
NPR. Lawsuit Challenges Student Loans, Nursing, Healthcare, Graduate Degree
12
KCRA. Nursing Loan Limits Under Trump Bill
13
American Nurses Association. Department of Education’s Loan Proposal Puts Nursing Workforce and Patient Care at Risk
14
Rep. Jen Kiggans. Rep. Kiggans Urges Department of Education to Roll Back Restrictions on Student Loans for Advanced Nursing Degrees
15
NASFAA. Court Temporarily Pauses Key Parts of Professional Student Definition Days Before July 1 Effective Date
16
Duane Morris. Navigating Uncertainty After Federal Court Stays Department of Education’s Narrowed Definition
17
Washington State Nurses Association. WSNA Opposes Excluding Nursing From Professional Degree Programs