Will a cap on student loans discourage Californians from becoming nurses? We may find out.
The Trump administration is proposing to restrict the amount of money nursing students can borrow to advance their education, raising worries that the change could potentially worsen California’s nursing shortage.
The U.S. Department of Education recently wrapped up a rulemaking session ironing out details about new federal student loan rules from President Donald Trump’s sweeping budget bill that passed in July.
The bill eliminates two loan programs — one of which is Grad PLUS loans, a type of federal student aid for graduate students — while also creating what the department describes as the “new and simplified” Repayment Assistance Plan, or RAP.
Under RAP, which will be available in July, the total federal debt cap for students in professional programs is $200,000 and $100,000 for other graduate students. The education department is proposing to define professional degrees as degrees in medicine, pharmacy, dentistry, veterinary medicine, law, clinical psychology and other fields.
Nursing wouldn’t make the cut for the higher loan cap.
California faces a shortage of about 36,000 licensed nurses. The number of students opting to attend private, more expensive nursing programs in California is also rising. In a statement to CalMatters, the University of California, which has four nursing schools, said “limiting access to student loans … for aspiring nurses will only worsen this (shortage) crisis by undermining efforts to grow the workforce.”
The lowered borrowing cap would also make it harder for nursing students to become nurse practitioners, nurse anesthetists or other positions that require advanced degrees, nursing organizations argue.
Sandy Reding, president of the California Nurses Association union contended, “Nurse practitioners currently provide much-needed primary care, particularly in rural and underserved areas. If this rule went into effect, it could have a major impact on nurses’ access to graduate nursing programs. In addition, it will make it more difficult to find nursing faculty with advanced degrees to teach in nursing programs. We want to be clear that this is an attack on the nursing profession.”
The effect of the proposed loan cap for nurses could be similar to what experts anticipate about Trump’s new student loan caps for medical students: That higher financial barriers for students to pursue certain degrees would make the pool of prospective health care workers both shrink and become less diverse.
The education department released a statement Monday arguing that 95% of nursing students already borrow below the loan limit and won’t be affected by the rule change. Ellen Keast, the department’s press secretary for higher education, also told Newsweek that the plan’s definition of professional degrees aligns with “historical precedent.”
“We’re not surprised that some institutions are crying wolf over regulations that never existed because their unlimited tuition ride on the taxpayer dime is over,” said Keast.
The department said it plans to finalize the student loan rules by early next year.
