The One Big Beautiful Bill Act passed in July of 2025, eliminating the Grad PLUS program, a loan program for graduate and professional students. It additionally capped loans for non-professional degrees, and in November, the Department of Education established guidelines for what a professional degree looked like.

After July of 2026, these graduate programs will be the only ones recognized as professional: pharmacy, dentistry, veterinary medicine, chiropractic, law, medicine, optometry, osteopathic medicine, podiatry and theology. In the past, other programs also fell under the title of a professional degree.

Programs including nursing, physician assistant studies, physical therapy, audiology, education and social work will now have lower student loan caps due to no longer being classified as professional degrees.

Students in programs that retain professional status are permitted to borrow up to $50,000 per year, whereas students in programs that are not under professional status are only permitted to borrow up to $20,500 per year.

These limits are applied annually, and are separate to the new lifetime limit of $257,500, which applies to both undergraduate and graduate loans.

Osha Kendrix, a first-year nursing student, said the changes to federal loan allocation have caused her to reconsider her long-term plans to pursue a graduate degree as a pediatric nurse practitioner.

“I really don’t know if I’m going to get any scholarships to be in grad school,” Kendrix said. “Those loans would have helped a lot, so that is kind of making me question my decision on going through with the grad program.”

Kendrix is one of many in nursing who will be affected by this reclassification. Allyson Neal, assistant dean of graduate programs, addressed how the policy could affect students across the college.

“Graduate nursing education is a significant investment, and federal loan limits do not always align with the full cost of completing a terminal nursing degree when tuition, fees and living expenses are considered,” Neal said.

For UT’s graduate nursing programs, tuition per year can exceed the loan limit of $20,500, potentially even higher in certain academic years or certain tracks, and for out-of-state students.

“While it may still be possible for some students to complete programs without private loans, doing so often requires increased employment during school, which can negatively impact academic performance and clinical success,” Neal said. “Because all our graduate programs are terminal degrees, these changes have the potential to affect students across the college.”

The U.S. Department of Education refutes the claim that many nursing students will be affected by the reclassification, claiming in a Q&A that the loan caps would actually encourage programs to reduce their costs.

For the College of Nursing, that answer could be easier said than done.

“Our curriculum is already highly streamlined, and maintaining required faculty-to-student ratios is essential to ensuring educational quality. These structural requirements limit flexibility around tuition adjustments. As a result, expanding scholarships and targeted financial support remains the most effective way to help students persist and succeed,” Neal said.

The combination of high tuition costs and reduced borrowing capacity may still significantly alter students’ plans for advanced nursing careers, despite the college’s efforts to provide support.

“If I’m being honest,” Kendrix said, “it’s kind of discouraging.”