Bills Introduced to Address Changes to Graduate Lending Programs

A trio of bills have been introduced this week to tackle the changes to the graduate lending programs passed into law via the One Big Beautiful Bill Act and subsequent negotiated rulemaking panel.  

Rep. Mike Lawler (R-NY) introduced the Professional Student Degree Act to expand the statutory definition of “professional” graduate degree programs, adding 14 additional fields to the 11 fields currently under consideration through negotiated rulemaking. The bill is intended to ensure that a broader set of established, workforce-aligned graduate programs such as health, engineering, and technical fields are granted access to higher annual federal loan limits. 

Rep. Tim Kennedy (D-NY), along with several fellow Democrats, introduced the Loan Equity for Professionals Act to raise the annual federal borrowing limit for non-professional graduate programs to $50,000 annually and $200,000 in aggregate, providing immediate relief to students enrolled in master’s-level programs that fall outside the professional designation. Those levels would align borrowing limits for “non-professional” graduate degree programs with their “professional” degree peers. 

Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-NY) introduced the Professional Degree Access Restoration Act to reverse the changes made to the graduate lending programs under the One Big Beautiful Bill Act.  

Further, a bipartisan group of nearly 150 Members of Congress sent a letter urging the Department of Education to classify nursing programs as “professional” graduate programs in the final rule governing federal graduate lending. The lawmakers argue that excluding nursing would severely limit access to affordable financing for students entering a critical, high-demand healthcare workforce and exacerbate existing nursing shortages nationwide. They emphasize that nursing programs share key characteristics with other professional degrees and should be treated accordingly in the Department’s final regulatory framework.