Graduate nursing student loan cap proposal: What to know

The Trump administration has excluded nursing from a list of career paths eligible for its highest graduate student loan limits, raising concerns on Long Island and across the country about a potential impact on the availability of the most-trained nurses.

The federal Department of Education is planning to impose new limits on borrowing for postcollege study, according to a proposed rule announced earlier this month. The rule, which is not yet final, would take effect in July 2026.

Nurses would face new annual limits of $20,500 and lifetime limits of $100,000 for graduate programs, such as the master’s and doctoral degrees that prepare nurses to advance their careers and become nurse practitioners, nurse-midwives, nurse anesthetists and nursing professors, according to the proposal. Those limits would also apply to aspiring physician assistants, physical therapists, speech-language pathologists and other graduate students.

The administration proposed higher limits of $50,000 a year and $200,000 over a lifetime for what it classified as “professional” degrees earned by doctors, lawyers, dentists, pharmacists and theologians, among others.

In addition to the lower loan limits, the Department of Education also plans to phase out the Grad PLUS Loan program, which allows students to borrow to cover the full cost of attending school, including room and board.

Excluding nursing from the list of professional degrees is “deeply insulting to all nursing professionals who use their training, their clinical judgment, and they work hard every single day to help people,” said Marie Boyle, 77, a nurse in the radiology department at South Shore University Hospital in Bay Shore and a member of the board of directors of the New York State Nurses Association, which describes itself as New York's largest nurses' union. “We need more highly trained nurse practitioners … and other advanced practice nurses to serve our communities.”

Employment of nurses with advanced degrees is expected to grow by 35% from 2024 to 2034, according to the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics.

The Department of Education said in a statement this week that the changes, included in the "One Big Beautiful Bill" enacted this summer, impose “commonsense limits” on student loans. Half of the $1.7 trillion in outstanding federal student loans are for graduate study, according to the department.

Federal data shows that 95% of nurses borrow amounts below the new annual limit, and the restrictions “will push the remaining graduate nursing programs to reduce their program costs, ensuring that nurses will not be saddled with unmanageable student loan debt,” the agency said.

Concerns over access to care

Gaelle Morris, 40, a family nurse practitioner who grew up in Deer Park and now works at a hospital in Westchester County, said she took out graduate student loans to earn her master’s degree from Drexel University in Philadelphia after earning her bachelor’s degree at Stony Brook University. Nurse practitioners with master’s or doctoral degrees in New York and certain other states can diagnose and treat patients and prescribe medications.

“I knew there was more that I could give to my community, which is why I went back to school to become a nurse practitioner,” Morris said. “It is very heartbreaking to hear that this opportunity is going to be stripped away from a lot of individuals.”

Wendy Darwell, chief executive of the Suburban Hospital Alliance of New York State, said restricting student loans for nurses and other health care workers could make it harder for patients to get access to care.

“We don't have enough primary care doctors, and it takes a lot longer to produce a new doctor than it does what we call mid-level practitioners — nurse practitioners and physician assistants — so supporting those educational programs is really essential to filling the gaps,” Darwell said. “Nursing has become even more and more skilled, requiring these additional years of education, so this determination is really devastating at a time when we need to be incentivizing people to go into those professions, not discouraging them.”

Launette Woolforde, executive vice president and chief nursing officer at New Hyde Park-based Northwell Health, the state’s largest health care provider, said she was “shocked and disappointed” to learn about the proposed lower loan limits for graduate nursing studies.

In addition to potentially decreasing the supply of nurses with advanced education, she said, the new loan limits also could make it harder for nurses to become professors, at a time when schools urgently need more educators.

“A key component of ensuring the perpetuity of the profession is having master’s-prepared nurse educators who are able to teach the next generation of nurses,” she said. “I look at this as a fundamental issue of health care being accessible for all.”