A federal judge has paused a Trump administration rule that would have shut advanced nursing and other healthcare programs out of the higher federal student loan limits set to take effect July 1.
On Wednesday night, U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell temporarily blocked the Department of Education’s definition of “professional degree,” which limited the higher borrowing tier to 11 fields (including law, medicine, dentistry, and clinical psychology) while excluding nurse practitioners, physician assistants, physical therapists, public health, and social work.
The American Association of Nurse Practitioners and the PA Education Association, along with six other groups, sued to block it. Howell sided with them and issued a preliminary injunction.
Why It Matters
The borrowing tiers carry real consequences for students trying to get a graduate education.
Under the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, “professional” students can borrow up to $50,000 a year and $200,000 total in federal loans. Everyone else maxes out at $20,500 a year and $100,000 total.
For many graduate-level students, the effective cap is really just $41,000, since many programs are two years.
Prior to the OBBBA, graduate students could borrow uncapped up to the college’s set cost of attendance.
The Legal Argument
When Congress wrote the new caps, it pointed to the Department’s own longstanding regulatory definition of “professional degree,” in effect since 2007. Howell’s ruling was that the Department had no authority to rewrite it, and so the plaintiffs were likely to prevail.
“By adopting the preexisting definition as it was in effect on a specific date, Congress removed any discretionary authority the Department may have had to narrow the definition,” she wrote.
The Department had added requirements found nowhere in the original rule (that a professional degree be at the doctoral level and require at least six years of coursework) even though it admitted nursing degrees “may satisfy the operative definition’s three-part test.”
What The Ruling Does And Doesn’t Do
The higher student loan borrowing limits will still take effect July 1. Howell paused only the Department’s narrow definition of professional degrees, meaning the broader 2007 standard now governs which degrees qualify for the $200,000 tier.
She declined to go further and block the statutory caps themselves, noting that “it is Congress that has the authority to change the statute, not the courts.“
What They’re Saying
The plaintiff groups called the ruling “only the first step,” warning that “the uncertainty created by this rule continues to threaten the future healthcare workforce at a time when communities across the country already face growing provider shortages.“
How This Connects
The graduate and professional student loan borrowing limits have drawn criticism from both parties. House Republicans recently advanced budget language that would make advanced nursing programs eligible for the higher limits.
The fight sits on top of a much larger change. The OBBBA eliminates the Grad PLUS program after June 30, which for nearly two decades let graduate and professional students borrow up to the full cost of attendance.
As we’ve covered in our breakdown of the new graduate loan limits and graduate vs. professional degree borrowing, the classification a student lands in now determines tens of thousands in borrowing power — and pushes many toward graduate student private loans that lack federal protections.
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