Why nurses are fighting for recognition of professional degrees

When the federal government recently released a list of professional degrees, it did not include nursing.

Many nurses have been fuming over the omission. While nursing hasn’t been previously listed as a professional degree program, the consequences of exclusion are now more serious. The passage of HR1, the federal law known as the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, brings new limits on borrowing for higher education.

Under the legislation, those in graduate programs that aren’t designated as professional degrees are limited in how much they could borrow from federal loan programs: $20,500 annually and $100,000 over a lifetime. Those with professional degrees, including doctors, dentists, and veterinarians, could borrow up to $200,000 in a lifetime (and there is criticism over those caps as well).

Nursing leaders say the lower caps will make it harder for some individuals to pursue advanced nursing degrees.

The American Nurses Association has been pushing for the inclusion of nursing as a professional degree program. Jennifer Mensik Kennedy, president of the American Nurses Association, says the omission of nursing as a professional degree will exacerbate the nation’s nursing shortage.

“This will stop people from going to school to be advanced practice nurses,” Mensik Kennedy tells Chief Healthcare Executive®.

Nurses need graduate degrees to teach in nursing, so this will reduce the number of nurses continuing their education and pursuing teaching positions. And fewer teachers also means fewer nurses, she says.

"It's going to be a big barrier for getting new nurses into undergraduate programs," Mensik Kennedy says.

“We're going to have less faculty because we're going to have less people being able to go to school to become faculty,” she explains. “And we're also going to have less primary care providers in the community in a time when we're drastically short of primary care and registered nurses. So none of this makes sense.”

(See part of our conversation in this video. The story continues below.)

Replenishing the pipeline

The Department of Education, which designated professional degrees, said most nurses wouldn’t be affected by the changes. The Trump administration says the borrowing limits are meant to ensure that more people aren’t racking up high amounts of debts they won’t be able to pay.

The Trump administration also says the changes will spur graduate nursing school programs to reduce their costs, and the administration says most nurses don’t have professional degrees.

But Mensik Kennedy says the changes will potentially serve as a roadblock to nurses interested in pursuing graduate degrees, including some who will need to borrow to pursue advanced degrees.

“This is very important that nurses be able to have access to the money to go to nursing school, so that our country's healthcare system can remain strong,” she adds.

The American Nurses Association says that more than 80,000 qualified applicants for nursing school were turned away last year. Most of those were turned away “because there's not enough nurse faculty,” Mensik Kennedy says.

With a shortage of nurses that is expected to worsen as more nurses approach retirement age, Mensik Kennedy says the government shouldn’t make it harder to pursue advanced nursing degrees.

“We have an aging population of people,” she says. “​​We have an aging population of nurses, too. We've got a lot of baby boomers who are retiring, and we need to replace them. We do not have the luxury of time. We need to make sure we get the pipeline strong up front and not wait.”

Part of the reason for the shortage of nursing faculty to help train more nurses is the fact that those roles don’t pay as well. Mensik Kennedy points to her own experience earlier in her career. When she left a nursing role to take a faculty position, she says she took a 40% pay cut.

“There's a reason why we are short of faculty,” she says. “The pay is not equal to the acute care and other clinical care settings.”

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Fears of precedent

Nurses could apply for private loans to pursue advanced degrees, but Mensik Kennedy says that may be challenging for some individuals.

“There is the opportunity to get private loans, and typically those are harder to get. You've got to have a certain level of a credit score, and this leaves out quite a few people,” she says.

The education department points out that nursing was never listed as a professional degree.

But Mensik Kennedy says the omission from the government’s revised list is significant.

“At the end of the day, when the federal departments decide not to put us on lists that say we're professional, it actually does matter,”

Mensik Kennedy says she’s worried about “downstream consequences” if nurses aren’t eventually added to the list of professional degrees. She says she’s worried about future reimbursements and workforce grants.

“It's significant because we know policy precedent is like a Trojan horse, because this list could very well be used in other areas and other departments for future funding reimbursement,” she says. “That's just the way policy works.”

While the Trump administration says the changes in caps on borrowing could spur some nursing graduate programs to reduce their costs, Mensik Kennedy says that’s “wishful thinking.”

“The schools of nursing don't have these large profit margins,” she says.

Nursing schools are struggling to recruit faculty now, and she says if there are fewer people pursuing advanced degrees for teaching positions, schools will likely limit the number of students they enroll.

Mensik Kennedy also says she’s worried that the caps on borrowing for graduate degrees will end up having a disproportionate impact on those in minority groups. About three-quarters (76%) of the nation’s nurses are white, she notes.

“One of the goals is to be able to have nurses who represent and look like the communities that they serve,” she says. ‘We're going to see better care when we do that. So this is a big concern, particularly when we know that statistically speaking, the research shows that they do have higher loan amounts and they need to borrow more money to go to school.”

Rep. Jen Kiggans, a Virginia Republican who is also a nurse practitioner, has urged the Education Department to revise the list of professional degrees to add nursing.

“I find it personally and professionally difficult to understand why the Department of Education is excluding nurses from being able to obtain the student loan funds they need to get an advanced nursing degree,” Kiggans said in a statement.

The American Council on Education says that nursing and other healthcare roles should be added to the list of professional degrees, including public health, physical therapy and occupational therapy.

The government’s list of professional degrees could take effect July 1. Mensik Kennedy hopes the education department will revise its list before it goes for public comment. The nurses association will be pressing the Education Department and members of Congress to get on board.

“We're all going to work,” Mensik Kennedy says. “We're going to make sure everyone hears about it.”

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