Education Department urged by providers to re-evaluate student loan cap positions

Provider groups are putting the Department of Education under pressure to revise the proposed policy change that would constrain the sum of in-training nurses, physician assistants, and other post-baccalaureate health professionals who might borrow under a federal student loan, which they argue will throttle the clinical workforce pipeline and lower care availability to the public.

The proposal is among the implementation of the department of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act that proposed new limits of borrowing to commence on July 1, 2026. The administration has indicated that the changes will aid in reducing escalating tuition fees and saving the students the cost of debt.

In particular, the law applies a limit of 20,500 per year and 100,000 in total to the borrowing limits of graduate students, which applies to those in an enrollment program in a professional degree. Graduate and professional students had already been permitted to borrow the full cost of attending.

The rub of provider groups is that the definition of the professional degree programs as proposed in the department would be limited based on 11 roles, such as medicine, pharmacy and other specialty doctorates, but not those of advanced practice registered nurse (APRN) such as nurse practitioner (NP) and certified registered nurse anesthetist, nor other professions, such as social worker or physical therapist.

In sync, providers have been raising concerns about the matter in the past few months. Their trade associations and individual organizations followed with a formal request of the department to revise its proposed definition and permit additional healthcare positions to borrow using the higher limits of the professional degree in the course of an open comment period on February 25.

An example by the American Hospital Association (AHA) has pointed out statistics of the National Center of Education Statistics showing that an average cost of above 30,000 per annum is incurred annually by nurses and social workers pursuing graduate degrees. The lobby also included that physical therapist degrees range between approximately 108,000 and 126,000, plus other living costs and other charges.

The AHA sounded a warning in its letter that reduced enrollment would put a significant strain on the pipeline of emerging clinicians, reduce the capacity of hospitals to provide care to care teams, create longer wait times and dependence on emergency care, and reduce health system preparedness in case of a natural disaster or health emergency. The impact might be particularly severe in rural and underserved regions where APRNs are frequently critical to ensure the continuation of access to high-need critical services such as anesthesia and critical care.

The AHA also stated that the Education Department has the discretion to broaden the definition in the statute and indicated that the definition of a professional student provided by Congress concurs with the post-baccalaureate roles in the field of health, though not stated explicitly.

In its letter, the American Nurses Association (ANA) reiterated the same, but objected to the justification provided by the department in its omission of post-baccalaureate nursing programs -state-by-state variation in NP practice authority.

The group claimed it is very disappointing that [the department] uses obscure regulatory obstacles, which are the outcome of the political choices of those states, and are not findings on whether APRNs are a unique profession, or whether they have education and clinical experience and knowledge to work to the maximum extent of their profession and licensure.

The ANA also cited that APRNs generally receive good compensation and that the default rate on their student loans is consistently low, and that the proposal in the education department would be incongruent with other policymaking in the first and the second Trump administration, like the Rural Health Transformation Program, which mostly concentrates on the top of a profession’s scope of practice.

In its letter, the American Academy of Physician Associates also criticized the scope of practice and the physician supervision angle of the department. On the former, the group, the ex-post facto, makes it clear that the same reasoning would rule out almost all licensed medical professions; on the latter, it emphasized that coordination between doctors and physician associates is not an indicator of reduced professionalism, but the staple of coordinated, patient-focused care.

Among the groups that have made comments seeking an elaboration of the definition of a professional degree are the groups that include the American Academy of Medical Centers, the American Academy of Family Physicians, the American Association of Colleges of Nursing, the American Health Care Association/National Center for Assisted Living, the American Association for Nurse Anesthesiology and the American Organization for Nursing Leadership.

Over 65,000 overall public comments had been posted in the proposed rule by the department, although some of those refer to the borrowing limits that would be put on other individuals also training in non-healthcare fields.

Growing Pressure on the Education Department

Education and financial service providers are calling on the Education Department to reconsider its current position on student loan borrowing caps. According to several industry stakeholders, the Education Department should re-evaluate these limits to better reflect rising tuition costs and the financial realities faced by modern students.

Providers argue that the existing caps set by the Education Department may no longer be sufficient to support students pursuing higher education. With tuition fees increasing across many universities, the Education Department is being urged to examine whether the current borrowing limits are still appropriate.

While the Education Department has not announced any immediate policy changes, discussions about loan caps are gaining momentum. Observers expect the Education Department to continue evaluating feedback from providers and stakeholders as it reviews the future of federal student loan programs.

If the Education Department decides to revise the caps, it could significantly impact millions of students who rely on federal loans to finance their education.