Which degrees did the 2025 Department of Education memo list as professional programs versus non-professional ones?

1. What the Department’s memo lists as “professional” — the core, high‑status fields

Reporting on the department’s proposal identifies a roughly “near‑dozen” set of traditional professional degrees that the agency would classify as professional for loan caps, with medicine, law and dentistry among the explicitly mentioned examples ^[1]. Inside Higher Ed’s coverage of the department’s proposal describes an updated list presented by Under Secretary Nicholas Kent that “slightly expands” the department’s earlier short list but remains narrower than other proposals discussed at the negotiated‑rulemaking sessions ^[3]. These accounts indicate the department’s core list privileges fields historically tied to licensure and direct professional practice in a medical/legal sense ^{[1] [3]}.

2. What the memo treats as non‑professional or moved off the list

Multiple outlets say the department’s narrow interpretation would exclude many programs commonly understood as professional by practitioners and professional associations: education (including teaching master’s degrees), nursing degrees such as MSN and DNP, social work (MSW/DSW), public health (MPH/DrPH), physician assistant studies, occupational therapy, physical therapy, audiology, speech‑language pathology, and counseling/therapy degrees ^[2]. Snopes summarizes reporting that the department “said it would no longer classify” those credentials as professional for the purposes of the loan caps, though it emphasizes this was part of a proposal rather than a completed reclassification ^[2].

3. Disagreement among stakeholders and why it matters

Higher‑education analysts and professional organizations push back because loan caps under the One Big Beautiful Bill Act place professional students at a $200,000 lifetime cap, versus $100,000 for graduate students; who qualifies therefore shapes borrowing capacity for costly post‑baccalaureate programs ^{[1] [2]}. Inside Higher Ed reports that Holt’s alternative definition—favored by some negotiators—would have been more inclusive, requiring only program length and CIP code criteria, whereas the department’s proposal applies stricter gates ^[3]. The policy consequence: programs moved off the “professional” list could face tighter federal loan access, shifting costs to students or institutions ^{[3] [1]}.

4. Procedural status and caution from fact‑checking

Snopes warns that, as of its reporting, the agency’s language was a proposal in negotiated rulemaking and had not completed rulemaking or been finalized into binding agency policy; Snopes therefore cautions against treating the move as an accomplished reclassification ^[2]. The Department of Education’s negotiated‑rulemaking materials and memo files show active discussion and competing drafts at the RISE committee, underscoring that final regulatory text remained subject to further negotiation ^{[4] [5]}.

5. Competing viewpoints and possible agendas

Conservative policy documents and some department actors frame the narrower list as restoring a 1965 regulatory interpretation and as fiscally responsible by limiting wide access to the higher professional loan caps ^{[5] [1]}. Critics—including professional associations for nursing and social work cited in Newsweek and summarized in Snopes—say excluding nursing and other care professions contradicts the department’s own language about licensure and undercuts workforce needs in fields that are often majority‑female ^{[6] [2]}. Inside Higher Ed notes that academic experts see the department’s list as less inclusive than alternatives proposed by negotiators like Holt ^[3].

6. What reporting does not yet settle

Available sources do not mention the full, verbatim list from the Department of Education’s memo as a single reproduced table in these excerpts; they instead report examples, summaries, and competing draft approaches ^{[3] [1] [2]}. Also, whether a final rule will adopt the department’s narrower interpretation — or a more inclusive definition championed by other negotiators — is not resolved in the cited reporting ^{[2] [4]}.

Bottom line: contemporary reporting paints a clear split—department officials circulated a proposal that privileges traditional law/medicine/dentistry‑style professions for the higher loan cap while excluding many education, nursing and allied‑health programs—but the change was a proposal under negotiation and met firm pushback from professional groups and alternative negotiators ^{[3] [1] [2]}.