WASHINGTON — Of the five minutes Rep. Randy Fine, R-Fla, had to question Department of Education Secretary Linda McMahon about the 2027 Department of Education budget, he spent four of them expressing his concerns about how a new rule creating a federal cap on student loans for nursing graduate students affected nursing shortages.

“Are you willing to work together to try to make sure that maybe we give a little bit less to the lawyers … and we make sure in these critical medical fields, where I believe [the loan cap] is going to do real damage, we can try to make sure we get the staff that we need?” Fine asked.

“Well, that rule is final,” McMahon said.

Fine wasn’t the first nor last to bring up the cap. During the hearing on May 14, representatives expressed bipartisan concerns about how the exclusion of graduate nursing degrees from a new federal “professional” classification impacted a growing nursing shortage in the U.S.

The “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” introduced the rule that subjected all graduate degrees to a new classification: “professional” or not. Students pursuing a graduate degree marked “professional” could receive $50,000 in federal loans annually. Meanwhile, students pursuing degrees not designated as “professional” were capped at $20,500 in federal loans per year.

Over the course of a graduate degree, “professional” programs’ federal loans are capped at an aggregate total of $200,000, while other programs are capped at $100,000.

As of May 1, following the DOE’s student loan provision negotiations, graduate nursing programs were officially excluded from the “professional” designation.

The programs listed as “professional” included pharmacy, dentistry, veterinary medicine, chiropractic, law, medicine, optometry, osteopathic medicine, podiatry, and theology, as well as “all programs that are adjacent to the 10 programs listed.” None of these adjacent programs included graduate nursing degrees.

The Education Department said in a Nov 24, 2025, press release that “the definition of a ‘professional degree’ is an internal definition used by the Department to distinguish among programs that qualify for higher loan limits, not a value judgment about the importance of programs.”

However, during the hearing, Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., said her home state had a projected shortage of 30,000 nurses over the next 4 years.

“Our nurses, obviously, are limited in their capacity,” Omar said. “They're overworked, and they're worried. So I know you said the decision is final, but I'm just trying to figure out, if you can answer, why did you move forward with an action that you know is going to be creating a problem or worsening a problem that already exists?”

McMahon said the caps were partly done to try to drive down the costs of graduate programs. She said that with the loan caps, colleges would reduce costs for graduate nurse programming.

“There are places to go and get these degrees that cost less,” McMahon said. “I really do believe, as market competition is available, you will see universities and colleges bring down these costs.”

McMahon said the enrollment rate drop was an incentive for colleges to lower their tuition.

But Rep. Lisa C. McClain, R-Mich., said it instead deters would-be nurses.

“I've been getting feedback quite heavily … to the contrary from both the hospitals and the schools, they see their enrollment rates going down for the graduate nursing programs, right? I'm not talking about the undergrads, but the graduate nursing programs. I don't know if there's something we can do to bridge the gap.” McClain said.

Omar asked how the caps would incentivize colleges to lower tuition rates, which McMahon said was already happening at the University of California, Irvine, and Purdue University in Indiana. When Omar asked what program colleges lowered tuition for, McMahon said they’d lowered business tuition.

“We're talking about nursing,” Omar said.

Rep. Donald Norcross, D-N.J., asked how the department chose the ten “professional” degrees, which McMahon said was “rule-making.”

“I get it's rule-making,” Norcross said. “What criteria did you use to make that list of ten?”

She offered no criteria but said the department spoke with lobbyists. She said the department “wanted to make sure that we weren't affecting a lot of professions that you know that were out there.”

The decision won’t affect undergraduate programs, but many states currently experience a shortage of graduate-level nurses, such as nurse anesthetists and advanced practice registered nurses.

According to the American Association of Colleges of Nursing, “Approximately 29,200 new APRNs, which are prepared in master’s and doctoral programs, will be needed each year through 2032 to meet the rising demand for primary and specialty care.”

By 2038, the Health Resources and Services Administration projected the U.S. would have a shortage of 141,160 nurse anesthetists.

Rep. Randy Fine, R-Fla, said he was concerned that nurse anesthetists’ degree programs qualify for the same level of government loans as registered nursing programs. Even though a certified registered nurse anesthetist needs a doctorate degree, which requires at least three years on top of a registered nurse degree.

“We've sort of taken all nurses, and we lumped them all together,” Fine said. “A registered nurse is super important as well. But, $100,000 for a registered nurse is probably not the same as $100,000 for the person who makes sure you don't die when you go under surgery.”

The American Nurses Association released a statement on Feb. 3, where it said it was “deeply concerned” about the decision.

In the statement, Jennifer Mensik Kennedy, president of the American Nurses Association, said the decision “sent an alarming message to nurses and the public.”

“The Department of Education’s reasoning distorts how nursing education, licensure, and practice work and, in doing so, sends an alarming message to nurses and to the public,” Kennedy said. “Excluding nursing from the professional degree category has the potential to put patient care at risk, especially in areas where nurses are the only healthcare providers in their communities. We urge the department to correct this proposal and explicitly include nursing as a professional degree before the rule is finalized.”

McMahon reiterated the ruling to withhold the “professional” label from graduate nursing degrees was final multiple times during the hearing, both to Republicans and Democrats, as they asked her to reconsider.

The rule will come into effect on July 1.

Omar said to McMahon that the decision made education less accessible.

“Your specific job is to try to make sure, as the head of the Department of Education, to make education accessible for Americans,” Omar said. “When you create policies that make education unreachable for Americans that want that education, you are failing at your job.”

Matthew Junkroski is a graduate student at Northwestern University.