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Did Trump propose changes to nursing licensure or federal funding during his presidency?
Executive summary
The Department of Education under President Trump implemented changes tied to the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA) that—according to numerous news outlets—exclude many nursing programs from the administration’s updated list of “professional degree” programs and eliminate or cap certain graduate loan options, which will reduce borrowing limits available to nursing students (e.g., Grad PLUS elimination and $200,000 vs $100,000 caps) [1] [2] [3]. Reporting also shows broader federal actions during the administration—such as an early-2025 funding freeze on some grants and executive steps on regulations—that critics say could affect healthcare funding, though a judge temporarily blocked one freeze and details on specific program impacts remained unsettled in reporting [4].
1. What the administration did to the “professional degree” definition
The Department of Education rewrote which programs count as “professional degrees” while implementing the OBBBA; multiple outlets report that nursing—along with physician assistant, nurse practitioner, physical therapy and audiology programs—was excluded from the updated definition the department used to determine who qualifies for the higher professional-student loan caps [1] [5] [3]. Media coverage frames this as part of the OBBBA’s overhaul of graduate/professional loan rules, not merely an isolated semantic change [2] [6].
2. How the loan rules changed and why it matters
Under coverage of the OBBBA, the law eliminated the Grad PLUS program many graduate students used and set different aggregate borrowing caps—reportedly $200,000 for students in programs the department labels “professional” and $100,000 for other graduate students—meaning programs dropped from the “professional” list would face tighter lifetime borrowing limits [2] [6] [7]. Reporters and nursing groups warn this could make advanced nursing education more expensive and harder to access, given hundreds of thousands enrolled in BSN and ADN programs and reliance on federal graduate loan programs for advanced degrees [1] [3].
3. Reaction from nursing organizations and educators
National nursing organizations—including the American Nurses Association and the American Association of Colleges of Nursing—are quoted as “deeply concerned” and have called the move a threat to workforce development and patient care, urging the Department of Education to revise the definition to again include nursing [2] [5] [8]. Local educators and deans echoed warnings about significant funding impacts for hundreds of thousands of students and potential long-term effects on health-care staffing [3] [9].
4. Media coverage and fact‑checking: consensus and caveats
Numerous mainstream outlets and trade press reported the reclassification and its loan impacts (People, Newsweek, WPR, Nurse.org, NBC Chicago, USA Today–cited summaries) [1] [10] [3] [5] [9]. Snopes examined the claim and summarized how the change fits into the OBBBA framework—noting that the bill eliminated the Grad PLUS program and that the department’s interpretation narrowed which CIP-coded programs match longstanding examples of “professional degrees” [11]. Snopes and others signal that reporting focused on the loan-cap consequences tied to the department’s interpretation rather than an across‑the‑board change to licensure requirements [11].
5. What this did not explicitly do — licensure and some federal funding questions
Available sources do not mention the Department of Education or the OBBBA changing state nursing licensure rules; the reporting centers on federal student loan eligibility and borrowing caps rather than altering professional licensure itself [1] [5] [11]. On broader federal funding, reporting documents separate executive actions in early 2025—such as a temporary pause on issuing some grants/awards—that raised concerns about impacts on healthcare and nursing homes, but a judge blocked a funding freeze and the White House said some programs (e.g., Medicaid or block‑grant disbursed programs) were not intended to be affected; concrete program‑level effects remained unclear in coverage [4].
6. Competing perspectives and implicit agendas
The Department of Education defended the changes as “commonsense limits and guardrails” and a simplification of repayment [3]. Nursing groups framed the move as detrimental to workforce stability, while outlet tone varies—some emphasize student financial harm and workforce risks, others focus on the administration’s intent to curb borrowing. Be alert that advocacy outlets and union statements stress workforce impacts, while the administration frames the action as budgetary and policy reform; each perspective has political stakes [3] [2] [12].
7. Bottom line for the original question
Yes—reporting shows the Trump administration implemented a change in how the Department of Education defines “professional degree” as part of the OBBBA, and that change, combined with elimination/capping of graduate loan programs, reduces federal borrowing capacity for many nursing students [1] [2] [5]. However, available sources do not report that the administration directly changed state nursing licensure rules; they document federal student‑loan and budget/executive actions with contested and evolving impacts on healthcare funding [11] [4].