Did any Trump administration rule change nursing licensure or scope of practice definitions?
Executive summary
The Trump administration’s Department of Education redefined which graduate programs count as “professional degrees,” excluding nursing (including MSN and DNP) and other health and service fields from that category — a change tied to caps on graduate borrowing under the One Big Beautiful Bill Act that takes effect next July [1] [2]. Nursing groups warn the reclassification will limit access to student loans for advanced nursing students and could worsen workforce shortages; the Education Department frames the move as part of implementing loan limits to reduce tuition growth [3] [1] [4].
1. What changed: a technical redefinition with big financial consequences
The Department of Education published a new definition of “professional degree” as part of implementing the One Big Beautiful Bill Act; under that revision, nursing programs (MSN, DNP), physician assistant, physical therapy, social work, education, audiology and several other fields were explicitly excluded from the list of degrees that qualify as professional programs, which triggers new borrowing limits for students in those programs [2] [1] [5].
2. Why the administration says it acted: restraining graduate borrowing
Officials tied the change to broader reform of graduate student lending: the One Big Beautiful Bill Act eliminated the old Grad PLUS mechanism and set caps on how much graduate students can borrow, and the Department argues defining which programs are “professional” is necessary to implement those limits and to incentivize lower tuition growth [2] [4].
3. Nursing groups’ response: immediate alarm over access and workforce impacts
National nursing organizations including the American Nurses Association and the American Association of Colleges of Nursing warned the exclusion “severely restricts access to critical funding” for advanced practice nurses and could hamper efforts to train nurse practitioners, clinical specialists and other advanced clinicians — potentially exacerbating shortages in a field already flagged as strained [3] [1] [6].
4. Media coverage and factchecks: consistent reporting, with some pushback
Multiple national outlets (Newsweek, NBC News, People, WPR and others) reported the Department’s decision to exclude nursing from the “professional” designation and linked it to the impending borrower caps [7] [1] [8] [9]. Snopes summarized the regulatory background — that the OBBBA eliminated the Grad PLUS program and the Department later listed specific degrees excluded from the professional-degree definition — and traced how the claim spread online [2].
5. Stakes for students: who is likely to lose borrowing power
The groups most immediately affected, according to reporting and nursing associations, are students pursuing post-baccalaureate nursing degrees (MSN, DNP) and other advanced-practice credentials — populations that often rely on graduate loan options to cover clinical training and tuition; the new caps take effect next July, meaning students planning advanced programs face different borrowing rules soon [1] [3] [8].
6. Political and ideological context: priorities and critics
Critics say the reclassification reflects an ideological choice to tighten entitlement for higher education and favor tuition restraint through borrowing limits; unions and progressive commentators frame the change as devaluing essential care and public-service professions [10] [6]. Supporters of the administration’s approach argue it is a needed correction to runaway graduate borrowing by narrowing which programs receive preferential loan treatment [2] [4].
7. What the sources do not resolve or say
Available sources do not mention specific regulatory language detailing how scope-of-practice definitions or state nursing licensure rules were altered; the reporting focuses on federal student-loan and degree-classification changes rather than changes to licensure or clinical scope-of-practice statutes (not found in current reporting). Sources also do not provide a quantified, causal forecast of how many nurses will be deterred from advanced degrees solely because of this rule change (not found in current reporting).
8. Bottom line and competing perspectives
Fact: the Department of Education’s redefinition removes nursing from the federal list of “professional” degrees tied to expanded graduate borrowing, and that shift is directly linked to new graduate loan caps under the One Big Beautiful Bill Act [2] [1]. Nursing and health groups warn this financial barrier threatens workforce capacity and patient care [3] [6]. The administration counters the move is a policy choice to curb graduate borrowing and reduce tuition inflation [2] [4]. The policy’s true impact will depend on rule implementation, whether Congress or courts intervene, and how schools and states respond to preserve training pipelines [2] [1].