New federal guidelines on what constitutes a “professional degree” are raising alarms across nursing schools, hospitals and medical education programs. The changes come from implementation of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which alters how graduate students can borrow federal loans and which degrees qualify for higher borrowing limits.
Under the act, the U.S. Department of Education’s updated list of professional degrees includes programs such as medicine, dentistry, pharmacy, law and veterinary medicine. Notably absent is nursing, a field that employs tens of thousands of Alabamians and plays a central role in hospitals and clinics across the State and nation.
Before the change, graduate students could borrow federal loans up to the full cost of their education. Now, students in degrees classified as “professional” can borrow up to $50,000 per academic year. Graduate students in other fields, including nursing, face a lower cap of $20,500 per year…