The Department of Education has begun implementing President Donald Trump’s student-loan overhaul, including new lifetime borrowing caps for graduate and professional students. It is a technical change with a wide reach, particularly for those preparing for healthcare careers.Under the proposal, only ten programmes, including medicine and law, qualify as “professional” and therefore fall under a higher borrowing ceiling of $200,000. Most other postgraduate fields, including nursing, face a $100,000 lifetime cap.The distinction has unsettled healthcare groups. During negotiations with the US Department of Education, some stakeholders said that lower caps might push nurses and other healthcare workers to leave training pathways, creating risks for patients who depend on them. Although department data suggests that many programmes will remain within the new limits, concern persists about how the cap interacts with programme costs and the removal of the Graduate PLUS (Grad PLUS) loan scheme, which previously allowed students to borrow up to the full cost of attendance.
What the data suggests
An analysis of College Scorecard figures indicates that most postgraduate nursing students borrow below the new caps. Preston Cooper, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, wrote that the caps “will affect only a small number of programs charging exorbitant prices,” citing Business Insider. He found that 115 of 140 advanced nursing programmes had median debts under $100,000 for the 2019 and 2020 cohorts. Only a few exceeded that amount, including Georgetown University’s programme, which carried a median debt of $212,494.But the wider context changes the calculation. With Grad PLUS eliminated, students in high-cost medical and health programmes may now face a gap between tuition and federal aid. The Association of American Medical Colleges reported that the median cost of four years at a public medical school in 2025 reached $286,454, with about half of students relying on Grad PLUS loans. Education policy experts told Business Insider that some prospective students may delay degrees or turn to private lenders, where borrowing is more costly and less regulated.
The Department of Education’s position
In a recent press release, the Department of Education stated that 95% of nursing students borrow below the new limits and stressed that undergraduate nursing pathways are unaffected. The department also said that changes to the definition of a “professional” degree are “not a value judgement about the importance of programs” and “have no bearing on whether a program is professional in nature.”The public comment period early next year may still influence the final rule, which is due to take effect in July 2026.
Where the caps intersect with the healthcare shortage
For many advocates, the debate is not only about loan mechanics; it is about the future shape of the healthcare workforce. Jennifer Mensik Kennedy, president of the American Nurses Association, told Business Insider that the caps land at a time when Medicaid changes and retirement trends already strain the system. “It feels like we are being attacked on all sides and really limiting what we can get from a funding perspective,” she said.Removing nursing from the “professional” category may also affect who teaches future cohorts. Faculty roles in nursing schools often require advanced credentials, which are themselves expensive. Mensik Kennedy warned of a cycle in which fewer faculty members lead to fewer trained nurses, reducing the system’s capacity to replace those leaving the profession. She said the trend could have an “immediate impact” on the availability of nurses in healthcare settings.
Who is most affected
The borrowing cap may also reinforce inequities. NerdWallet lending expert Kate Wood told Business Insider that healthcare professions “already skew whiter and wealthier than the general population,” and that caps may deter students from lower-income families, rural communities or underrepresented minority groups. For these groups, access to stable federal loans often determines whether advanced training is possible.
The longer view
The new limits will not be felt in a single admissions cycle. Instead, effects will emerge gradually: students adjusting course choices, institutions revising enrolment plans, and some prospective professionals stepping away from degrees that no longer seem financially viable.As the rule moves towards finalisation, the central question is how a financing decision made in Washington shapes the composition of a workforce on which nearly every community depends. For many students, the answer will be measured in the options they lose, the debt they must take on elsewhere, or the careers they decide not to pursue at all.
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