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Which degrees did the Department of Education list as non-professional in its 2025 guidance memo?
Executive summary
Available reporting shows the Department of Education’s 2025 negotiated proposal (from the RISE process implementing the One Big Beautiful Bill Act) sharply narrowed which graduate programs qualify as “professional,” excluding many health and social‑service degrees such as nursing, public health (MPH/DrPH), social work (MSW), physician assistant, occupational therapy, audiology, clinical psychology in some forms, and advanced nursing/NP programs—reducing the candidate list from roughly 2,000 programs to fewer than 600 [1] [2] [3] [4]. Coverage differs on exact lists and legal status: some outlets report nursing explicitly excluded [5] [6], advocacy groups name MSW, Ed.D., MPH/DrPH, and social work among those excluded [7] [2] [8] [9].
1. What the Department actually proposed — a tight, criteria‑based definition
The Department’s draft ties “professional degree” status to strict criteria: programs must signify students can begin practice in a defined profession, require skills beyond a bachelor’s degree, often be doctoral level (with a Master of Divinity exception), require roughly six years of instruction (including at least two post‑baccalaureate years), and be in the same four‑digit CIP code as one of 11 listed professions—moving from a broad, descriptive approach to a narrowly codified list [4] [10].
2. Which fields reporting shows were left out or at risk
Multiple advocacy groups and news reports say that nursing (including advanced nursing/NP programs), public health degrees (MPH and DrPH), social work (MSW), physician assistant programs, occupational therapy, audiology, and several other allied health or service degrees were removed or would lose “professional” status under the draft—meaning students in those programs might not access the higher $50,000 annual / $200,000 aggregate professional loan limits [8] [2] [9] [1] [11].
3. Disagreements and differing framings in the coverage
Not all outlets frame the change identically. Inside Higher Ed emphasizes the technical criteria and the department’s move toward 11 explicitly mentioned professions plus some doctoral programs [4]. New America and AEI note the policy choice narrows who gets higher loan caps, but AEI argues excluding programs like MSW and Ed.D. can be justified by lower typical borrowing in those fields [10] [7]. Advocacy groups (AACN, ASPPH, CSWE) emphasize workforce harm from excluding nursing, public health, and social work [8] [2] [9]. Newsweek and other outlets reported the Department “no longer considers nursing” a professional degree and flagged immediate concerns for nursing funding and workforce pipeline [5] [6].
4. Scale of the change: from ~2,000 to under 600 programs
Reporting and social posts indicate the department’s approach would shrink the roster of programs treated as “professional” from roughly 2,000 distinct program listings to fewer than 600—drastically narrowing eligibility for the larger loan caps and prompting alarm from higher‑education and professional organizations [1] [11] [3].
5. Practical consequence highlighted in sources: loan limits and workforce concern
Under OBBBA and the Department’s rulemaking, students in “professional” programs would keep higher annual and aggregate loan limits; students in programs reclassified as non‑professional would face lower limits and the loss of Grad PLUS options, which policy analysts and professional associations warn could make critical graduate training less affordable and affect supply in health and social‑service fields [10] [9] [2].
6. What reporting does not establish or explicitly say is final
Available sources show a negotiated proposal and preliminary consensus (RISE committee) and mention an expected Notice of Proposed Rulemaking and public comment period—but they do not all state that a final Department regulation has been issued, nor do they publish a single definitive master list of every excluded degree in final regulatory text. If you want the Department’s final, authoritative list, current reporting does not mention a publicly posted, final rule text here [4] [2].
7. Political and institutional context to weigh
The change emerges from implementing OBBBA’s loan caps, a politically contentious statute that left definitional choices to ED; commentators from AEI support tighter limits to focus loan capacity on high‑cost professions, while professional associations argue the narrower definition reflects a limited understanding of workforce realities and may carry implicit cost‑containment motives [7] [8] [2].
Bottom line: reporting consistently shows the Department’s 2025 draft reclassifies many nursing, public‑health, social‑work, and allied‑health graduate programs as non‑professional and dramatically narrows the pool of programs eligible for higher loan caps; exact final lists and regulatory text were not published in the sources provided [8] [2] [1] [4]. If you’d like, I can compile the specific program names cited by each organization in these sources side‑by‑side.