Over the last 9 months, nurses have been protesting a federal regulation that they say would drive up student loan debt, exacerbate workforce shortages, and threaten patient access to care. Last week, they put their words into action by suing the Department of Education (DOE) over that rule.
The American Nurses Association (ANA) and nine other national nursing organizations filed a lawsuit against the department and Secretary Linda McMahon last week.
The rule, which is slated to take effect July 1, excludes nurses from a definition of "professional degrees," which substantially reduces the amount of money graduate nursing students can borrow from the federal government, according to an ANA press release.
Under new borrowing limits set by the One Big Beautiful Bill Act passed last July, students obtaining "professional degrees" are allowed to borrow $50,000 annually, or $200,000 in aggregate, whereas students in graduate programs are allowed to borrow only $20,500 annually or $100,000 in aggregate.
The nursing groups' lawsuit argued that excluding nurses from the "professional degrees" category is unlawful and violates the Administrative Procedure Act. They called the DOE's actions "arbitrary and capricious and not the product of reasoned decision-making" and said the department failed to "meaningfully ... engage with public comments," of which there were more than 80,000.
