A proposal from the U.S. Department of Education deems teachers, nurses, behavioral health therapists, and several other careers as no longer “professional.”

The rule, begat from President Donald Trump’s Big Beautiful Bill, separates those vocations from doctors, veterinarians, pharmacists, lawyers, theologians, and psychologists, which would  maintain their status.

If approved by the U.S. Department of Education, the rule reduces how much students can borrow from the federal government to $100,000 total or $20,000 annually. Those who retain their professional status have their loans capped at $50,000 a year or $200,000 total.

The public will have a chance to comment on the proposal before a final decision is made.

While masters and doctorate nursing programs typically fall below the proposed cost threshold, Janet Coffman, professor of health policy at UC San Francisco, says differentiating the nursing profession comes at a time when society needs those specialties to fill gaps in medical care more than ever.

“When we make it harder for people to finance their education, that just adds to the disincentive,” Coffman said. “That’s counter to where we are both with needing providers, particularly in the Valley and other more agricultural, rural areas of the state.”

Nursing Doctors Train Next Generation

The Department of Education claims that 95% of post-graduate nursing students borrow below the $100,000 loan limit.

A masters of nursing degree at Fresno State costs about $5,000 a semester, according to Kathleen Rindahl, chair of the nursing school at the university. At four semesters and about $20,000 total, it should fall well below the $20,000 annual cap and $100,000 total cap.

The doctor of nursing degree, a DNP, costs about $9,500 a semester. At five semesters, it costs about $50,000.

Nationally, the cost for a masters lands at about $47,000, according to a 2022 article from Nursa, a health care staffing platform. A doctorate, however, averages about $184,000.

It’s those with doctorates who can train the next generation of nurses, Rindahl said. Nurses with doctorates already don’t get paid more than those with masters degrees. Limiting loan amounts further discourages getting doctorates, potentially squeezing the number of teaching nurses.

Students who may want to pursue the degree will have to turn to private lenders, which can cost much more, she said.

“We are trying to grow our own nurses to be professors at universities so we can continue to grow new nurses because there’s a huge nursing shortage as we all know,” Rindahl said.

Teachers also get the reduced loan cap. But Fresno County Superintendent of Schools Michele Cantwell-Copher said it shouldn’t negatively impact teachers as local programs also fall below that cap.

“We recognize how important affordable pathways are for future educators; however, based on what we know today, we don’t expect this to affect most new teachers in the Central Valley, as our regional preparation programs typically fall well below those limits,” Cantwell-Copher said in an email to GV Wire.

Studies Show Correlation Between Loan Amounts, Tuition Costs

The education department says that 80% of the nursing workforce does not have a graduate degree.

In a response to media claims and objections by teaching and nursing associations, the department says the “professional” designation is only an internal definition used to distinguish who qualifies for higher loan amounts.

By lowering the cap, the department says it can bring down tuition costs.

“Since 2007, graduate and professional students have been able to borrow up to the full cost of attendance,” the department said in an FAQ memo. “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 department did not respond to further inquiries from GV Wire, but libertarian thinktanks such as CATO Institute have long drawn connections between the availability of federal education grants and loans to the rising cost of education.

CATO cited a Federal Reserve study showing for each dollar in loans provided, tuition costs increased by 40 to 60 cents.

Nurse Practitioners Fill the Gap Created by Physician Specialization

The education department, however, did not provide data as to why behavioral health, education, and nursing careers were removed from the “professional” list, Coffman said.

“By making distinction between ‘professional’ or not, the Department of Ed just set themselves up to be a lightning rod for criticism from organized nursing,” Coffman said.

No data was shown that those with nursing degrees pay back loans at a lower rate than those that retained the professional status. In fact, considering the pay and better job certainty in nursing than many other vocations, Coffman said the payback rate should be better than most degrees.

When Trump’s Big Beautiful Bill passed, Coffman anticipated changes coming. She thought, however, the redesignation would follow careers that don’t require licensing. Nurses, teachers, and behavioral health professionals all require licenses to practice their careers.

With doctors increasingly focusing on specialty care and away from general practice or family medicine, clinics and medical offices turn to nurse practitioners for general care, Rindahl said.

“Nurse practitioners and (physician assistants) do bridge the gaps,” Rindahl said. “I see a lot of patients just in the urgent care because they can’t see their primary doctor.”

Beginning in January 2026, nurse practitioners in California who get a physician to sign off and have enough clinical hours can open their own practice.

Nurse midwives, anesthetists, and more all require postgraduate degrees. They can both do work similar to their medical doctor counterparts, Coffman said.

“Folks who are making that decision are already saying, ‘I want a different, more advanced role in nursing and I’m potentially willing to give up some income to get that,’ ” Coffman said. “When you’re already making that calculus and then you see I might not be able to borrow as much money as I thought I could to finance my education, some folks may think twice.”