The Trump administration is making it significantly harder for graduate students across the country to fund their education and is jeopardizing their future careers by classifying some degrees as “non-professional.” Here is what you need to know about these changes.
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Education Secretary Linda McHanon, former CEO of the WWE, is implementing caps on student loans for degrees now deemed “non-professional,” as part of President Donald Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill Act,” according to The Independent.
Trump’s “Big, Beautiful Bill Act” aims to cut federal spending, including on food benefits and Medicaid, while increasing spending on border and defense initiatives, the BBC reports.
These cuts include reductions to education funds, which will disproportionately affect Black graduate students. The Education Data Initiative notes that 66% of Black graduate students rely on student loans, compared with 47.4% of white graduate students.
Denying graduate nursing programs “professional degree” status would exacerbate financial hurdles and systemic barriers for Black nurses, hindering their career advancement and worsening their underrepresentation in leadership, faculty, and the overall nursing profession.
“Professional degree” students, such as law, medicine, dentistry, pharmacy and chiropractic students, can borrow up to $50,000 per year and $200,000 over the course of their degree. Students who are not on a “professional degree” course, like physician assistants, physical therapists and nurses, can only borrow $20,500 per year and $100,000 overall, according to USA Today.
Online, this decision to redefine what is or isn’t a “professional degree” has sparked outrage with folks who cannot believe nursing is not considered a professional degree, especially during a time when there is a national nursing shortage.
Former occupational therapist and Congressman Tim Kennedy, representing New York’s 26th congressional district, posted a video on X stating that the funding cuts are an attack on the American healthcare system and will hurt communities nationwide.
“We should be opening doors, not closing them, and making it more difficult for people to help others and become healthcare practitioners,” Kennedy ended his video.
The American Association of Colleges of Nursing (AACN) wrote they are “deeply concerned by the Department of Education’s decision to move forward with a proposed definition of professional degree programs that excludes nursing and significantly limits student loan access… Should this proposal be finalized, the impact on our already-challenged nursing workforce would be devastating.”
That’s not even taking to account that nursing is a woman-dominated field, with 88 percent of registered nurses being women. Black (male and female) nurses account for the second-largest racial group of registered nurses, with 11.8 percent, a percentage that is growing, according to the healthcare site Magnet ABA therapy.
The redefinition of “professional degrees” has only further convinced Black folks online that the Trump administration is trying to attack Black people, women especially, and they have posted their thoughts on X.
“Advanced nursing degrees not being considered a ‘Professional degree’ is a direct shot towards minorities and women and men of color,” wrote one user.
“Because of the dismantle of The Department of Education NURSING degrees are no longer considered professional degrees….This administration is going to show yall better than they can tell yall about how much they hate women and POC,” wrote another.
Other users posted that this decision has made them want to leave the country, “Removing graduate nursing programs from the professional degree list is rlly so strange I have to get tf out this country.”
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