ANA grassroots advocacy manager Katherine Rowe

Few moments in recent history demonstrate the power of nurses as clearly as the fight over the definition of “professional” degree programs. Hundreds of thousands of nurses spoke out against the Department of Education’s proposed definition, loud enough for the issue to gain traction across social media channels and make an impact on Capitol Hill.

How Did We Get There?

We’ve known that the Department of Education (ED) was preparing to scale back support for unsubsidized federal graduate loans; last year’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA) tasked the ED to do so. The question was how. That’s why the American Nurses Association (ANA) pushed for nursing representation on the ED’s Reimagining and Improving Student Education (RISE) Committee and collaborated with partners on strong coalition letters when our calls for including the nurse voice went unheeded.

Despite these efforts, the RISE committee failed to recognize post-baccalaureate nursing programs’ strength and rigor, excluding them from the definition of “professional” degree programs.

Why does this matter? OBBBA eliminated the Grad PLUS Loans program while the RISE committee’s recommendations established two levels of federal student loan limits:

1. Graduate caps: $20,500 annual / $100,000 total
2. “Professional” caps: $50,000 annual / $200,000 total

In […]