The Department of Education's decision to remove nursing from the list of professional degrees will throttle access to student loans and exacerbate existing nursing shortages-especially in rural areas where advanced practice nurses provide primary care, says Sue Anne Bell, associate professor of nursing at the University of Michigan.
The DOE's decision may cut by more than half the amount of money graduate students can borrow annually and over the life of their college careers.
According to the Health Resources and Services Administration, Michigan will face a 19% shortfall in registered nurses by 2037, making it among the 10 states facing the largest deficit.
The changes are part of the Trump administration's "Big Beautiful Bill" and resulted in some graduate degrees that require professional training being cut from the list. In nursing, this means advanced practiced nurses, nurse anesthetists, clinical nurse specialists, midwives and others.
The bill imposes a lifetime borrowing cap of $100,000 for traditional graduate students and $200,000 for graduate students who kept the "professional" designation. Annually, traditional graduate students are limited to $20,500 with professional students capped at $50,000. The bill also terminates Grad PLUS loans, which graduate and professional students use for expenses not covered by other financial aid.
The move could also hamper efforts to recruit nurse educators and students. According to the American Association of Colleges of Nursing, in 2022, nursing schools reported 2,100 faculty vacancies that resulted in 80,000 applications turned away.
Bell said the nursing faculty shortage is already the bottleneck of the U.S. nursing workforce.
"Until we expand the pipeline of advanced practice nurses who can teach, mentor and lead, we will continue to face a nursing shortage not because of lack of interest, but because of lack of capacity," she said. "We cannot build a resilient health system
without investing in the educators who train it. Expanding access to graduate nursing education is essential, not only to relieve the nursing shortage at the bedside, but also to ensure we have the clinical experts and faculty needed to prepare the next generation.
"A constrained pipeline of advanced practice nurses harms the entire health system: Patients face delays and poorer outcomes, hospitals absorb the strain of chronic understaffing, and insurers see rising costs from avoidable emergency care and readmissions."
According to the AACN, 17.4% of the nation's registered nurses held a master's degree and 2.7% held a doctoral degree, and the current demand for master's- and doctorally prepared nurses for advanced practice, clinical specialties, teaching and research roles far outstrips the supply."
The new rules start on July 1, 2026. The DOE has not published a proposed or final rule defining professional students, and said in a statement that it may still make changes in response to public comment.
