The social-media inclined may have seen recent social media posts criticizing the federal Department of Education’s (ED) recent decision to reclassify certain types of graduate degrees as “nonprofessional.”
This impacts physician assistant programs, advanced nursing degrees, occupational therapy, audiology, and several public health degrees — fields that are largely female dominated. There has been a loud uproar from female nurses in particular, who have argued that the reclassification is a targeted administrative blow to female-led fields. The move will shift the ED definition of a “professional” graduate degree from 2,000 different programs to less than 600 by July 1, 2026 and impact federal loan funding.
Why did the Department of Education shift the classification? And what does it mean?
The reclassification of some graduate degrees is one piece of a broader reform package that is designed to lower the price of education.
After the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA) was passed this summer, the ED and its rulemaking committee, Reimagining and Improving Student Education (RISE) tightened the definition of what constitutes a “professional” versus a “nonprofessional” graduate degree program. In a November 24 press release, the ED attempted to clear up the confusion regarding the definition debacle, saying
The definition of a “professional degree” is an internal definition used by the Department to distinguish among programs that qualify for higher loan limits, not a value judgement about the importance of programs. It has no bearing on whether a program is professional in nature or not.
Put in other words, a “professional degree” is nothing more than an ED internal definition. (One gets the sense that the rulemaking committee would perhaps have chosen their terminology differently if they had foreseen the incoming public attention.)
So, in the eyes of the ED, what is a “professional” degree? The National Association of Scholars gives a clear checklist:
- Signify that students have the skills to begin practice in a particular profession
- Require a level of skill beyond that of a bachelor’s degree
- Be a doctoral level degree (with the exception of a Master’s in Divinity)
- Require at least six years of academic instruction (at least two of which are post-baccalaurette)
- Involve a profession that requires licensure
- Be included in the same four-digit CIP code as one of 11 professions explicitly mentioned in the regulation
Examples of degrees explicitly coded as “professional” by the Department of Education are Pharmacy (Pharm.D.), Dentistry (D.D.S. or D.M.D.), Veterinary Medicine (D.V.M.), Chiropractic (D.C. or D.C.M.), Law (L.L.B. or J.D.), Medicine (M.D.), Optometry (O.D.), Osteopathic Medicine (D.O.), Podiatry (D.P.M., D.P., or Pod.D.), and Theology (M.Div., or M.H.L.).
The distinctions between professional and non-professional graduate degrees matter for the incoming graduate school loan limits on federal loan distribution.
Since 2007, students who choose to attend graduate school and choose to utilize federal Grad PLUS student loans are eligible to borrow up to the full cost of attendance, determined by the school.
Starting on July 1, 2026, the Grad PLUS program will be completely scrapped in favor of the Repayment Assistance Plan (RAP). Under the RAP, students attending non-professional graduate programs will have annual loan limits of $20,500, and lifetime loan limits of $100,000. Students enrolled in professional graduate programs will have yearly limits of $50,000, and lifetime limits of $200,000.
While this change may make it more difficult for some people to attend expensive graduate schools in the short-term, it’s a step towards long-term system reform.
Maybe the medieval usury ban had a point
It’s no secret that there is a student loan debt crisis in this country.
Average inflation-adjusted tuition for public and private four year colleges has essentially doubled in the last 30 years. To make up the gaps, many students turn to federal loans, which are easily accessible and are often included in a school’s financial aid package calculation. Uncle Sam is a generous creditor; federal student loan debt represents 91.6% of all student loan debt in the nation.
It’s become a significant public financial issue. Federal student loan debt in the United States totals $1.814 trillion, and 42.5 million student borrowers have federal loan debt.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, the highest federal loan balances (by a long shot) belong to students who borrowed for graduate school. Graduate students tend to borrow around $20,000 more per year from the federal government than undergraduates. Many of them can’t pay it back. Nearly half the student loan portfolio is currently in a nonpayment status.
Granting unpayable loans isn’t an act of charity — it’s a pathway towards shackling Americans to snowballing debt and bankrupting the ED’s coffers.
Commentators have theorized for years that federal student loan caps would incentivize schools to lower tuition costs by cutting bloated administrative systems and increase efforts to grant institutional aid to students. It appears that the Department of Education agrees with this analysis. In the recent November 24 press release, it noted:
Since 2007, graduate and professional students have been able to borrow up to the full cost of attendance. This has allowed colleges and universities to dramatically increase tuition rates, even for credentials with modest earnings potential, which has saddled too many borrowers with debts they find difficult to repay. The Act’s annual federal loan caps are already reining in inflated prices at graduate programs across the country.
In the 2021 National Association of Scholars report Priced Out, Neetu Arnold argued for federal loan reforms that are similar to the ones begun by the OBBBA. She wrote:
We can’t sustain the status quo. The student loan crisis already distorts the entire American economy. Every American lives in an economy shaped by ballooning student debt, regardless of whether he went to college or borrowed any student loans. American taxpayers face no moral obligation to pay back other people’s voluntarily acquired student loans. But the American economy, and the taxpayers along with it, will suffer in the long-term if they passively allow the problem to continue.
These new graduate loan caps are a step towards reform. As students choose lower-cost graduate institutions in response to the federal loan caps, graduate schools should in turn reexamine budgets and lower tuition prices.
With nonprofessional graduate annual loan limits of $20,500, many will not be affected by the change. Contrary to social media opinion, that includes nurses. From the Department of Education November 24 press release:
Department of Education data indicates that 95% of nursing students borrow below the annual loan limit and therefore are not affected by the new caps.
Further, placing a cap on loans will push the remaining graduate nursing programs to reduce their program costs, ensuring that nurses will not be saddled with unmanageable student loan debt.
It is important to remember that the loan limits are limited to graduate programs and have no impact on undergraduate nursing programs, including four-year bachelor’s of science in nursing degrees and two-year associate’s degrees in nursing. 80% of the nursing workforce does not have a graduate degree.
While rulemaking for the reforms is still in progress, it seems that there have been a few steps in the right direction. But there is still more to be done. Columnist Kali Jerard argues that “The next best step will be to put colleges and universities on the hook for defaulted student loans, along with a substantial amount of the total loan percentage—something policymakers have toyed with but never followed through on.” Another possible reform option (which, in my opinion, appears far more achievable) would require colleges and universities to publish student outcome data under the same requirements as programs that will receive Workplace Pell Grants.
It’s good news, however, to hear that future generations of graduate students will have some reprieve from the burden of unpayable loan balances.