{"id":398358,"date":"2025-11-23T04:11:29","date_gmt":"2025-11-23T04:11:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/398358\/"},"modified":"2025-11-23T04:11:29","modified_gmt":"2025-11-23T04:11:29","slug":"nursing-no-longer-considered-a-professional-degree-by-trump-administration","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/398358\/","title":{"rendered":"Nursing no longer considered a professional degree by Trump administration"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Trump administration is no longer considering nursing as a professional degree, as it begins rolling out student loan changes in its One Big Beautiful Bill Act.<\/p>\n

That means getting financial help to complete advanced degrees in nursing and other health care professions could become more difficult at a time when Wisconsin is facing a shortage.<\/p>\n

Under the U.S. Department of Education\u2019s new definition of professional programs<\/a>, nursing, physician assistant, nurse practitioner, physical therapy and audiology programs are now excluded and must follow new borrowing limits.\u00a0<\/p>\n

News with a little more humanity<\/p>\n

WPR\u2019s \u201cWisconsin Today\u201d newsletter keeps you connected to the state you love without feeling overwhelmed. No paywall. No agenda. No corporate filter.<\/p>\n

Students in programs that are designated as \u201cprofessional,\u201d including doctors, dentists and lawyers, can borrow up to $50,000 a year or a total $200,000 under the new guidelines.\u00a0<\/p>\n

All other graduate students can borrow up to $20,500 a year or a total of $100,000. <\/p>\n

The plan also eliminates the Grad PLUS program<\/a> that allowed graduate students to borrow up to the full cost of attendance. In a statement, the Department of Education said the changes \u201cplace commonsense limits and guardrails on future student loan borrowing and simplify the federal student loan repayment system.\u201d<\/p>\n

According to several nursing groups, the rule change could have far-reaching consequences for nurses seeking advanced practice roles, leadership positions or other graduate-level jobs that are vital to the health care workforce nationwide.<\/p>\n

Jennifer Mensik Kennedy, president of the American Nurses Association, said limiting access to funding for graduate education threatens the foundation of patient care.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIn many communities across the country, particularly in rural and underserved areas, advanced practice registered nurses ensure access to essential, high-quality care that would otherwise be unavailable,\u201d Kennedy said in a statement.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Kim Litwack, dean of the College of Health Professions & Sciences at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, said nearly all graduate students are dependent on federal financial aid because they\u2019re cutting back on full-time jobs to return to school. <\/p>\n

\u201c(Physician assistants) and nurse practitioners are providing a lot of health care in this country,\u201d Litwack said. \u201cAnd if that financial aid goes away, I think we have some serious threats that are going to be facing primary care delivery and service delivery.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Wisconsin Department of Workforce Development predicts the state will be short between 12,000 and 19,000 nurses by 2040.<\/p>\n

Dr. Carol Sabel is chair of the School of Nursing at the Milwaukee School of Engineering. The school offers a bachelor\u2019s degree in nursing and a degree in psychiatric mental health for nurse practitioners. <\/p>\n

She says Wisconsin not only has a nursing shortage, but a shortage of primary care physicians. <\/p>\n

\u201cNurse practitioners work in pediatrics, they work in mental health, they work in so many roles,\u201d Sabel said. \u201cNow we\u2019re just decreasing the number of students that have access to education because we\u2019re decreasing the amount of student loans that are accessible.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sabel said advanced degrees in health care take about 40-45 credits, and students pay per credit. Cost varies depending on the institution, but she said nearly every student needs federal financial aid. <\/p>\n

Knowing that Wisconsin has a shortage of health care providers, the state Legislature began adding $5 million in the biennial budget, beginning in 2022-23, to the Higher Educational Aids Board for a nurse educator program.<\/a><\/p>\n

Students who receive a master\u2019s or doctorate in nursing from a Wisconsin university will have their loan forgiven if they agree to teach nursing for three years.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Litwack says that program has helped, but cutting federal financial aid will still be disastrous.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a little bit horrifying,\u201d Litwack said. \u201cI would like to remain hopeful that it was an oversight, and not an intent.\u201d<\/p>\n

Wisconsin Public Radio, \u00a9 Copyright 2025, Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin System and Wisconsin Educational Communications Board.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Trump administration is no longer considering nursing as a professional degree, as it begins rolling out student…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":398359,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[210,1141,1142,8734,50,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-398358","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-health-care","8":"tag-health","9":"tag-health-care","10":"tag-healthcare","11":"tag-higher-education","12":"tag-news","13":"tag-united-states","14":"tag-unitedstates","15":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115597061870597127","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/398358","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=398358"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/398358\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/398359"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=398358"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=398358"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=398358"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}