The Republican-led education department is now seeking to limit their backing for certain professions by withdrawing student loan support from graduate students seeking certain (formerly) professional degrees.
Here are some of the degrees that would no longer be considered “professional degrees” according to the proposed changes from the Department of Education:
“…education (including teaching master’s degrees), nursing (MSN, DNP), social work (MSW, DSW), public health (MPH, DrPH), physician assistant, occupational therapy, physical therapy, audiology, speech-language pathology and counseling and therapy degrees.”
The new proposed rules according to snopes.com define “professional degree” requirements as being:
“…generally at the doctoral level, and that requires at least six academic years of post-secondary education coursework for completion, including at least two years of post-baccalaureate level coursework.”
There are additional requirements listed in the Snopes reference above.
Professional degrees still include degrees such as pharmacy, dentistry, law, medicine (including veterinary medicine), and somewhat unusually also theology and chiropractic degrees.
New requirements in the Big Ugly Bill passed by Republicans go into effect July 1st 2026 and permit students in “professions” to borrow government-backed loans at an amount of a maximum of $50K per year and graduate students of different types to borrow a maximum of $20.5K per year. The excluded professions would have more restrictive government borrowing rules.
The significance of this narrowing of what is a “profession” will cut back on student government-backed loans under title IV for the long list of what are no longer considered professional degrees.
This policy effectively says that based on political considerations, Republicans no longer wish to support the above-listed “professions” considering them to be of less value than others. These rules seem to be value judgements based on resentment of certain professions that are disliked and disrespected. But how can they justify reducing support for physician assistants, occupational therapists, social workers, educators, etc.?
My answer is that these are “helping professions” largely dominated by Democrats. The goal is to deplete and starve these professions of government support to reduce the number of middle-class Democrats who can both command a good salary and pay less interest on their student loans after graduation. Republicans can hurt them by miring them in debt by forcing them to pay for expensive (market-rate) commercial loans for school.
Republicans having adopted a vengeance platform have a long list of perceived enemies and are good at using government regulation to target them. Educators seem to be at the top of the list.
Republican officials appear to have fallen in love with the government rule writers and regulators that they formerly claimed to dislike so much.
