Which academic programs were explicitly listed by the Department of Education as reclassified to non-professional in 2025?

1. What the Department moved on: a rulemaking that narrows “professional degree”

In 2025 the Department of Education’s RISE Committee and subsequent rulemaking work focused on defining “professional degree programs” under the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA); the Department’s final language enumerated specific fields that qualify as professional degrees and used four‑digit CIP code groupings to extend or limit coverage ^[3]. The process included preliminary consensus and a planned Notice of Proposed Rulemaking, indicating the changes were regulatory, not a one‑line press release ^{[2] [3]}.

2. Which programs reporters singled out as reclassified to non‑professional

Local and trade reporting explicitly named nursing as having been reclassified out of the professional‑degree category; for example, the Statesman headline stated “nursing no longer counts as a professional degree” in summarizing the Department’s change ^[1]. Other outlets and advocacy groups flagged public‑health degrees—specifically the MPH and DrPH—as targeted for exclusion under the Department’s proposed definition, warning this could remove them from higher federal loan limits ^[2].

3. What the Department’s listed “professional” fields include — and the implication for others

The Department’s final language on professional degrees included a set of specific fields (ten named fields plus Clinical Psychology) and then said it would include any program that shares the same four‑digit CIP code as those named fields ^[3]. That approach means programs not in those named lists or CIP clusters can be treated as non‑professional, which is why nursing and certain public‑health degrees were reported as falling outside the new definition ^{[3] [2]}.

4. How reporting and industry groups framed the impact

News coverage framed the changes as consequential for students’ borrowing limits and program funding; the Statesman warned losing “professional” status weakens funding prospects for nursing students ^[1], while the Association of Schools and Programs of Public Health (ASPPH) described the proposed exclusion of MPH and DrPH as likely to restrict students’ access to higher federal loan limits and to weaken pipelines into the public health workforce ^[2]. Those are reactions to the proposed rule, underscoring financial and workforce implications.

5. What’s missing from the materials you provided

None of the supplied documents or articles lists an authoritative, exhaustive roster of every academic program the Department formally reclassified to “non‑professional” in 2025; the sources show the rulemaking framing and highlight nursing and public health as notable exclusions or shifts, but they do not provide a complete program‑by‑program list ^{[3] [1] [2]}. Available sources do not mention a comprehensive official list of all reclassified programs.

6. Conflicting perspectives and possible agendas

Advocacy groups and education outlets portray the Department’s move as a policy choice with distributional consequences—some see it as a necessary clarification of loan categories, while nursing and public‑health advocates depict it as harmful to workforce pipelines and student financing ^{[3] [1] [2]}. Coverage of the broader effort to reorganize the Department’s functions (outsourcing programs to other agencies) comes from outlets criticizing the Trump administration’s push to shrink the Education Department—this political context may shape how the reclassification is framed ^{[4] [5] [6]}.

7. What to look for next if you need a definitive list

To obtain an authoritative, program‑level inventory of which degrees were formally reclassified, you should consult the Department’s final rule text or the official Notice of Final Rulemaking and any accompanying regulatory impact analysis; those would enumerate definitions and, by CIP code, show which programs fall inside or outside “professional” status—documents not present in the sources provided here ^{[3] [2]}. Available sources do not mention the final regulatory text or an appended appendix listing every affected CIP code.

Summary: Reporting and advocacy sources identify nursing and some public‑health degrees as examples of programs affected by the Department’s 2025 redefinition of “professional degrees,” but the supplied materials stop short of an exhaustive, Department‑issued list of every reclassified program ^{[1] [2] [3]}.