Which specific academic programs did the Education Department reclassify as non-professional in 2025?

1. What reporters and rulemaking materials actually show: draft narrowing of “professional” status

The Department’s negotiated rulemaking (the RISE committee) and related reporting in November 2025 focused on defining which graduate programs qualify for higher federal loan limits under the One Big Beautiful Bill Act; the committee produced draft regulatory language and reached consensus on many items, and Under Secretary Nicholas Kent presented a plan that slightly expanded a limited list compared with an earlier proposal but still narrows eligibility relative to broader definitions ^{[2] [7]}. New America’s explainer of the finalized language describes inclusion criteria tied to specific fields and to four‑digit CIP code groupings, showing the technical route ED used to decide which programs count as professional ^[1].

2. Nursing, public health and other clinical fields — targeted and contested, not uniformly “reclassified”

Multiple advocacy groups and news outlets reported that the Department’s proposals or draft consensus would exclude programs such as nursing or public health from the “professional degree” category, prompting strong pushback from nursing and public health organizations (for example, the American Association of Colleges of Nursing and the Association of Schools and Programs of Public Health) that warned of reduced loan access for MSN, DNP, NP, CRNA and MPH/DrPH students ^{[3] [4]}. These sources show that the change was proposed and strongly disputed, but they do not present a single ED final rule saying “nursing and public health are now non‑professional” across the board ^{[3] [4]}.

3. What social posts and local headlines assert vs. what federal materials show

Social media posts and local newspaper headlines claimed a long list of degrees were being reclassified—nursing, physician assistant, OT/PT, counseling, education, social work, IT/engineering, business, arts, speech pathology, audiology, etc.—but those viral lists are not confirmed by the primary ED rulemaking materials in your set; one thread even conflates Department of Labor classification moves with Department of Education policy actions ^[6]. Local reporting (e.g., a Statesman story) summarized the political effect and public alarm but did not cite a final agency list of programs reclassified by ED ^[8].

4. Why the confusion is predictable: separate processes and overlapping agencies

Part of the ambiguity stems from overlapping systems: the Department of Labor changes how occupations are classified for statistics (a different process than ED’s regulatory definition of “professional degree”), while ED’s rulemaking ties “professional degree” status to CIP codes, credit thresholds and a short list of explicitly named fields — a technical, regulatory approach that won’t map cleanly onto every professional title or degree label people use in conversation ^{[6] [1]}. The ED rulemaking also culminated in a negotiated committee consensus rather than a simple “ED says X lists are non‑professional” press headline ^[2].

5. What advocates, universities, and think tanks say — competing perspectives

Higher‑education groups warned that narrowing “professional” status would reduce graduate students’ access to higher loan limits and could disproportionately affect fields with lower average pay like education and social work; think tanks such as AEI argued that excluding some programs (MSW, Ed.D.) makes fiscal sense because most students in those programs borrow within standard limits ^{[9] [10]}. The Association of American Universities and ASPPH described the proposal as a threat to access for costly, workforce‑critical fields ^{[10] [4]}. These statements show clear disagreement over policy goals: fiscal restraint and limiting debt versus preserving access to expensive professional training ^{[9] [4]}.

6. Bottom line and what’s missing from the record you provided

Your sources document draft rules, committee consensus, industry pushback, and viral lists — but they do not contain a single ED press release or final regulation that enumerates “specific academic programs reclassified as non‑professional in 2025.” If you want a definitive list, current reporting does not provide one in the materials you supplied; the closest items are negotiated rulemaking summaries and advocacy responses describing which fields would likely be excluded under the draft criteria ^{[2] [4] [3]}. Available sources do not mention a finalized ED list that exactly matches the viral lists ^{[6] [8]}.

If you’d like, I can:

• Pull together the specific program names that appear in the RISE committee materials and explain, line‑by‑line, how the CIP‑code test would include or exclude common graduate programs (based on the documents you supplied) ^{[1] [2]}; or
• Track down official ED rule texts, Notices of Proposed Rulemaking, or Federal Register postings (not present in your current set) to see whether a final determination was published.