The coalition of Democratic states claimed that the rule arbitrarily discriminated between “professional” students in education programs, such as medical or law school, and “graduate” students in other fields of study. The One Big Beautiful Bill Act set a $100,000 limit on graduate loans and a higher $200,000 cap on professional loans.“Cutting off access to federal student loans cuts off access to career opportunities for Virginians,” Virginia Attorney General Jay Jones said. “This unlawful rule will worsen the workforce crisis and further strain to the healthcare field. The Trump administration is once again skirting the system of checks and balances, and my office is committed to standing up for student borrowers in the Commonwealth.”
The lawsuit alleges that the Education Department’s rule, which marked only 11 programs as eligible for the professional designation, failed to follow Congress’s more flexible definition of which programs qualify as professional.
Federal law had defined a professional degree as one that signified a student had completed the academic requirements to begin practicing and was beyond a bachelor’s degree. However, the law also gave 10 illustrative examples of a professional program, which the Education Department used in its definition, while adding an additional program. The states suing the agency claim that the new professional definition was narrower than lawmakers had intended.
