AFRO Staff Writer
The Department of Education will no longer classify several long-recognized graduate programs as professional degrees, a shift that will affect financial aid limits and reshape how universities describe advanced training in fields that rely on licensing.
The updated definition removes nursing from the government’s professional degree category. The change will apply to federal student aid policies beginning with the 2026 fiscal year. Programs that remain classified as professional degrees will include medicine, dentistry, law and veterinary medicine. Degrees that fall outside the list will be categorized as academic graduate programs rather than professional ones.
“Nurses comprise the largest component of the healthcare workforce, are the primary providers of hospital patient care, and deliver most of the nation’s long-term care,” according to a study published in 2024 by the American Association of Colleges of Nursing (AACN). “17.4 percent of the nation’s registered nurses held a master’s degree and 2.7 percent held a doctoral degree as their highest educational preparation.”…