Inside the GOP pushback to Trump’s student debt rules

The bloc of moderate Republicans jousting with Speaker Mike Johnson on health care are turning their ire against new Trump administration student debt rules they fear will squeeze the nursing profession.

Tucked into the GOP’s sweeping domestic policy bill this year was a provision that set lifetime borrowing caps for students working toward graduate and professional degrees. But when the Education Department ultimately decided this fall which professions would be eligible for the highest debt limits, it left nursing off the list.

While students pursuing professional degrees in 11 fields will be allowed to borrow up to the $200,000 cap set out by the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, those seeking graduate degrees in other fields are limited to $100,000 — a sum that no longer covers the cost of some advanced nursing programs.

Deans of nursing schools and associations representing nurses fear the omission from the list will ultimately discourage people from becoming nurse practitioners, the medical professionals who can treat and prescribe medications to patients, and nurses who can conduct research or train other nurses. This could worsen the shortage of these critical health care providers in the United States.

Now, a group of swing-district Republicans who have frequently used the House’s narrow margins to prod their own leadership, are angling to roll back the Education Department’s decision.

There’s “a very easy way to solve this,” said Rep. Mike Lawler (R-N.Y.), who is cosponsoring legislation with four other Republicans to add nursing and several other careers, including occupational therapy, social work, audiology and physician assistant, to the agency’s list.

Lawler’s allies include Reps. Brian Fitzpatrick (R-Pa.), Don Bacon (R-Neb.), Rob Bresnahan (R-Pa.) and Jen Kiggans (R-Va.) — lawmakers that have frequently joined him in bucking Johnson this year. The five lawmakers were also part of a group of Republicans who signed onto a bipartisan letter specifically asking for nurses to be included on the list.

Given the workforce shortages across the health care sector, “clarifying this in my mind is vital,” Lawler said. “I don’t think that this is that controversial.”

Kiggans, a vice co-chair on the House nursing caucus, said she had a call with Education Undersecretary Nicholas Kent in late November about the issue.

“I just really drove the point home that this is not inclusive of nurses,” Kiggans, who is also a nurse practitioner, said of the call with Kent. “It’s disrespectful to nurses, and we have a nursing shortage.”

Ellen Keast, the agency’s press secretary for higher education, said in a statement that department officials and members of the higher education community agreed on a definition of professional student that opens the highest borrowing limits to students pursuing very expensive degrees. She also said the administration wants to protect people from overborrowing for their education.

The Education Department came up with its definition based on an existing definition from a federal higher education law that served as more of a guideline. The distinction between graduate and professional previously didn’t matter as much because of the Grad Plus program — federal loans that allowed students to borrow up to the full cost of getting their advanced degrees. But that program will sunset for new borrowers in July.

“Congress chose not to change the existing definition of professional student, but they can amend the law at any time, and the agency will issue responsive regulations,” Keast said.

The number of jobs for nurses with advanced degrees such as nurse anesthetists, nurse midwives and nurse practitioners is anticipated to grow 35 percent from 2024-2034, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The average growth rate for all occupations is only 3 percent.

The omission of nursing from the list sparked a huge backlash on social media, with posts about the proposal going viral even though some of them misconstrued the policy’s intent. Some creators said the Education Department was targeting female-dominated fields, and others implied it would be more difficult to get a job after graduation. The Education Department later released a statement saying it was not a value judgement about the importance of nursing programs, but was just intended to distinguish how much money could be taken out for a program.

Rep. G.T. Thompson (R-Pa.), a senior member of the House Education and Workforce Committee, said he agrees nursing should be considered a professional degree and that the definition of professional needs to be revised, and possibly shouldn’t include a fixed list.

“I got to tell you no matter how many you list, you leave somebody out,” Thompson said.

In response to the criticism of the loan caps, the Education Department publicly defended the caps, saying the agency’s data indicates that 95% of nursing students borrow below the annual loan limit and won’t be affected by the new caps.

The average cost for a Master’s of Science in Nursing programs, which prepare students for advanced nursing roles, ranges from $15,030-$42,880, according to 2020 data from the National Center for Education Statistics. But programs for a Doctor of Nursing Practice, which builds off a master’s degree and is often used for leadership and teaching roles, ranges from $63,570 to $172,280.

The department also argued that allowing nurses to borrow up to the full cost of attending these programs has driven up tuition rates and the caps will ultimately drive down the cost of tuition.

Eileen Fry-Bowers, dean of the School of Nursing and Health Professions at the University of San Francisco, said schools still have competitive reasons to keep tuition costs low even if the Education Department permitted higher loan limits for nursing programs.

“If I were to raise my tuition significantly, I wouldn’t have students because there are other options,” Fry-Bowers said.

She also said there isn’t much room for her to cut. Education in a clinical setting, such as working in a hospital, often requires more staff, which contributes to costs. But it is an essential piece of education in the health care field.

“What’s challenging is there’s a fundamental misunderstanding of what it takes to educate a health care professional versus other types of degree programs in the country,” Fry-Bowers said. “For nursing education in particular, I may have one instructor in the classroom teaching the theory part of the educational process, but then I may have to hire 15 other clinical instructors to work with my students in the clinical setting.”

The department also states that 80 percent of the nursing workforce does not have a graduate degree.

But deans of nursing schools say that many teaching and faculty roles require these advanced degrees, and capping loans for these programs could result in a drop off in those willing to train nurses.

Annette Wysocki, dean of the School of Nursing for the University at Buffalo, said it would be a hard sell to convince prospective faculty to turn down high-paying clinical jobs to teach, especially if they have significant student loan debt.

“Right now, every single one of my faculty who is a licensed professional nurse practitioner could easily be paid much more than I can pay them to be on faculty,” Wysocki said.

Kiggans said she understands the department’s point about most nurses not being affected, but the lower loan caps give the wrong impression.

“It’s the perception that we aren’t valuing nurses,” she said.