A higher education economist recently addressed the “outrage” by higher education and nursing associations over a regulatory decision by the Trump administration.
As part of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act signed this summer by President Donald Trump, undergraduate and graduate borrowers will face new limits. In particular, graduate students in programs deemed “professional degrees” can borrow up to $200,000, while others can only borrow $100,000.
As part of the proposed rule, law students, medical students, and others will have a higher borrowing limit. However, the administration determined that advanced nursing degrees, not the undergraduate ones generally needed to work as a registered nurse, would not be able to qualify for the higher limits.
But as Preston Cooper at the American Enterprise Institute explained, the backlash from professional nursing groups and institutions is both misplaced and self-serving:
Contrary to claims that this decision will restrict access to the nursing profession broadly, the higher loan limits would have applied only to a small subset of advanced nursing degrees. Undergraduate nursing degrees like the Associate Degree in Nursing (ADN) and the Bachelor’s of Science in Nursing (BSN) would not have qualified for professional loan limits under any circumstances. Master’s programs like the Master of Science in Nursing (MSN) would not qualify as professional under any reasonable reading of the law.
Cooper has previously explained how programs have a financial interest in getting their degrees classified for the higher limits.
The problem continues, he wrote:
It should be no surprise that the dean of nursing at the University of Pennsylvania called the new limits “an affront to the nation’s most trusted profession” in a statement to Newsweek. Graduates of Penn’s advanced nursing programs rack up $168,000 in student debt—more than twice the national average for similar programs. Taxpayers shouldn’t be forced to subsidize Penn’s program through federal student loans when dozens of lower-cost options exist.
Cooper, drawing on data from the federal College Scorecard, concluded that the new limits, if enacted following the public comment period, would affect very few graduate students. And in fact, they might even help students, as at least one school has already lowered its tuition following the anticipated limits.
“The new caps will affect only a small number of programs charging exorbitant prices,” Cooper wrote. “Nursing associations should therefore welcome rather than denounce the Education Department’s effort to bring down debt burdens for nursing students.”
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