How the Redefinition of Professional Degrees is Going to Majorly Impact Public Health in The United States

By Sofia Jordao

In late November 2025, the Department of Education (DoEd) drafted regulations to enact the student loan provisions detailed in President Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill.

In their provisions that defined what a professional degree is, the DoEd redefinition excluded many health professions. With limitations on the quantity of federal loans they can take out, many aspiring health care providers may not be able to obtain the higher education necessary for their profession, potentially leading to a health care shortage in the United States.

The One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA) is an all-encompassing piece of federal legislation aimed at maximizing the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA). The bill seeks to reduce federal spending with plans to cut spending on Medicaid, Supplemental and Nutritional Assistance Program (SNAP), and phasing out tax-cuts for clean energy established by the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA).

OBBBA has also set new provisions surrounding federal student aid, placing a lifetime cap of $200,000 for professional students and $100,000 for graduate students. While the Department of Education claims that “These loan limits will help drive down the cost of graduate programs and reduce the debt students have to take out,” there is no evidence to suggest that this is true.

While the cost of undergraduate programs has steadily decreased over the past 5-10 years due to factors such as increased scholarship opportunities and university grants, the cost of graduate programs has increased.

The rising cost of graduate programs is in part due to the nature of the degrees being pursued, with more students entering expensive master's programs like psychology or public health and not receiving funding associated with traditional academic degrees, where students usually apply for research funding or assistantships. However, as a whole, institutions are raising the sticker prices of graduate programs at a rate that outpaces aid.

While the cost of a graduate degree varies widely across the U.S and across specialties, the average cost to obtain a master’s is $60,000-$80,000, with the average medical or law doctorate costing $200,000-$300,000. These costs do not factor in the cost of obtaining an undergraduate education beforehand, which averages $100,000-$235,000.

While capping student loan interest rates might force graduate programs to lower their prices, many programs can’t afford to. Prices are rising because schools must invest in non-academic expenses (like IT, software, and student services), which increase overhead. They also have to offer better career services and updated facilities to attract students, and many universities have begun developing online programs, which are costly. With an increasingly competitive job market, schools have shifted to attracting students by offering greater career opportunities, the latest tech, and research opportunities.

While graduate programs may be abusing the fact that they know their students can take out federal loans, capping them in this capacity will only be detrimental.

If graduate programs cannot reduce costs, then they will reduce the number of students to whom they give aid.

While this can greatly impact individuals in all fields, it leaves minority groups especially vulnerable. The rise in the cost of graduate programs already disproportionately affects African American and Hispanic/ Latino students.

In a 2020 study conducted by the American Council of Education (ACE), researchers found that African American and Latino/Hispanic students were more likely to borrow for postsecondary education than other groups, they are more likely to incur debt in pursuit of a graduate degree, and that these debt loads exacerbated racial wealth disparities between black and white students.

Many students from these communities are the recipients of scholarly aid. If schools reduce aid because of federal loan caps, these students will lose critical support.

If graduate programs reduce costs, they will cut back on the number of students receiving aid and the number of students they admit, meaning fewer students get into graduate programs and fewer professionals enter the workforce. If graduate degrees do not decrease in cost, more people will be forced out of higher education because they either can’t afford private loans or can’t pay them back.

Reducing caps on student loan limits for graduate degrees will not, in itself, force graduate programs to lower their costs. For individuals who can obtain a loan for higher education, it is not nearly enough to cover their program costs, and for many others, they may not even qualify for a loan.

With the Department of Education being forced to set parameters on what constitutes a “professional” degree, many graduate programs were excluded from their definition. According to the department, nursing, physical therapy, occupational therapy, physician assistant programs, public health, architecture, accounting, educators, social work, and audiology are not recognized as “professional degrees.”

This new classification sparked outrage on social media and prompted a response from many professional organizations across the U.S.

The American Association of Colleges of Nursing (AACN) stated, “Excluding nursing from the definition of professional degree programs disregards decades of progress toward parity across the health professions and contradicts the Department’s own acknowledgment that professional programs are those leading to licensure and direct practice. AACN recognizes that explicitly including postbaccalaureate nursing education as a professional is essential for strengthening the nation’s health care workforce, supporting the next generation of nurses, and ultimately supporting the health care of patients in communities across the country."

"Excluding nursing from the definition of profesional degree programs disregards decades of progress towards parity across health professional degree programs..."

As a result, the Department of Education released a statement where they clarified, “The definition of a 'professional degree' is an internal definition used by the Department to distinguish among programs that qualify for higher loan limits, not a value judgement about the importance of programs. It has no bearing on whether a program is professional in nature or not.”

Despite the department clarifying its view on the importance and value of specific degrees and that this does not necessarily correlate with funding, its decisions to exclude these degrees still undoubtedly affect people who plan to pursue these fields.

By not recognizing these degrees as professional degrees, the DoEd essentially strips students of the ability to obtain federal loans.

This becomes a major roadblock in access to higher education, as federal loans are notoriously better than private loans. Federal loans have stronger borrower protections, flexible repayment options, no prepayment penalties, fixed interest rates, and the potential for loan forgiveness.

When you take away people's ability to access safer loan options, many students will be forced out of higher education.

When asked how he thinks a lack of federal funding is going to impact the quantity and demographic of people able to obtain a higher education, pre-physician assistant student Yash Patel said, “It’s not fair that it’s not counted as a professional degree especially with the amount of education and training they go through…it is going to affect low income students who are already at a disadvantage.”

Furthermore, for programs such as nursing, physician assistant, and physical therapy, this will have profound impacts, as not enough healthcare workers will be available to meet the demands of an aging population.

All these professions require a graduate degree, and because the DoEd does not recognize them as professional degrees, many students will not be able to obtain the funding necessary to complete their graduate education.

Sourced by the ORAU

This directly bleeds into the healthcare shortage, as not enough professionals are graduating to fill the demand created by an aging population.

This will likely lead to a nationwide shortage, with not enough workers to accommodate demand, leaving individuals without critical care.