A federal judge’s ruling has thrown the definition of a “professional degree” into a state of legal flux just as sweeping new student loan limits took effect this week, leaving thousands of graduate students uncertain how much they’ll be allowed to borrow.
At issue is a provision of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, the Trump administration’s student loan overhaul, which caps federal borrowing at $100,000 for most graduate students but allows those in “professional” programs to borrow up to $200,000. The Education Department initially limited that higher-borrowing designation to just 11 degrees, including medicine, law, dentistry and theology — and notably excluded nursing, physical therapy, social work and several other fields that advocacy groups argued clearly fit the law’s own criteria.
U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell disagreed with the department’s approach. In a June 25 ruling, she found that Congress had adopted an existing regulatory definition of “professional degree” when it created the loan caps last year, leaving the department no authority to narrow that definition on its own. She called the agency’s interpretation “misguided.” Howell also indicated the department’s rulemaking process likely violated the Administrative Procedures Act.
The order forced the Education Department to scramble. By Monday, the agency had issued a revised, interim rule expanding the professional degree list to 29 programs — adding fields such as nursing, physical therapy, athletic training, speech-language pathology and physician associate programs. But the reshuffling cut both ways: theology, applied psychology and pharmaceutical sciences, among roughly 25 other programs, were stripped of the professional designation and now face the lower borrowing cap, even as the related master of divinity degree remains classified as professional.
Department officials made clear the change was a concession, not a retreat. Undersecretary Nicholas Kent said the agency disagrees with the court’s order but will comply while continuing to fight the case, saying officials “will continue to make the case that the definition is both lawful and appropriate.”
The stakes are significant. Federal data show roughly 429,000 borrowers exceeded the new annual caps in the most recent academic year, and a Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia analysis found a majority of doctoral-level health students already borrow well beyond what the original, narrower rule would have permitted.
Lawmakers have floated their own fixes. Rep. Mike Lawler, R-N.Y., introduced bipartisan legislation that would write an expanded list of professional degrees directly into law, and a House Appropriations Committee amendment would specifically classify advanced nursing programs as professional — though that provision has not yet been enacted and applies only to one field.
For now, the interim rule remains in effect only while litigation continues, and the Education Department has signaled the list “may change as litigation in the case proceeds.” A separate lawsuit filed by a coalition of Democratic-led states challenging the loan caps themselves is still pending, meaning the underlying fight over how much debt graduate students in high-need fields like nursing can take on is far from settled.
For students currently weighing graduate programs in nursing, theology or other affected fields, the practical upshot is a degree of uncertainty that’s likely to persist well into the next academic year.
