The recent changes in student loan policies under the Trump administration’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act have sparked concern among health care educators and professionals. The act no longer considers nursing a professional degree, complicating financial aid access for advanced degrees in nursing and other health care fields at a time when Wisconsin is grappling with a significant shortage of such professionals.
According to the U.S. Department of Education’s revised definition of professional programs, fields such as nursing, physician assistant, nurse practitioner, physical therapy, and audiology are excluded from certain borrowing privileges, now subject to new loan limits.
While students in programs like medicine, dentistry, and law can borrow up to $50,000 annually or $200,000 in total, other graduate students are capped at $20,500 per year or $100,000 overall.
The elimination of the Grad PLUS program, previously allowing graduate students to borrow up to the full cost of attendance, is also part of the new financial aid landscape. The Department of Education asserts that these changes “place commonsense limits and guardrails on future student loan borrowing and simplify the federal student loan repayment system.”
Nursing organizations warn that these adjustments could pose significant challenges for those pursuing advanced roles and leadership positions in health care. Jennifer Mensik Kennedy, president of the American Nurses Association, emphasized that restricting funding access undermines the foundation of patient care. “In many communities across the country, particularly in rural and underserved areas, advanced practice registered nurses ensure access to essential, high-quality care that would otherwise be unavailable,” Kennedy stated.
Kim Litwack, dean at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee’s College of Health Professions & Sciences, pointed out that most graduate students rely heavily on federal financial aid as they reduce work hours to focus on studies. “Physician assistants and nurse practitioners are providing a lot of health care in this country,” Litwack noted. “And if that financial aid goes away, I think we have some serious threats that are going to be facing primary care delivery and service delivery.”
With a projected shortfall of 12,000 to 19,000 nurses by 2040, as estimated by the Wisconsin Department of Workforce Development, the situation is dire. Dr. Carol Sabel from the Milwaukee School of Engineering highlights that Wisconsin faces not only a nursing shortage but also a lack of primary care physicians. “Nurse practitioners work in pediatrics, they work in mental health, they work in so many roles,” Sabel explained. “Now we’re just decreasing the number of students that have access to education because we’re decreasing the amount of student loans that are accessible.”
Advanced health care degrees, which require about 40-45 credits, are costly, and nearly all students depend on federal aid. Recognizing the state’s health care provider deficit, the Wisconsin Legislature has allocated $5 million in the biennial budget since 2022-23 to the Higher Educational Aids Board for a nurse educator program. This initiative offers loan forgiveness to those who earn a master’s or doctorate in nursing from a Wisconsin university and commit to teaching for three years.
Despite this effort, Litwack warns that reducing federal aid could have devastating impacts. “This is a little bit horrifying,” she said. “I would like to remain hopeful that it was an oversight, and not an intent.”
