My high school physics teacher once admonished me not to get a graduate degree in education.Get a real degree, he said. I’m not sure the master’s degree I completed or the doctorate I ABD’d at DSU in information systems were any more “real” than education
Amidst the dissolution of the Department of Education, the Trump Administration has decided to stop considering the advanced degrees required of nurses, physician assistants, physical therapists, audiologists, architects, accountant, educators, and social workers “professional” degrees. The folks left in Trump’s decimated DOE are apparently taking as exclusive a list of examples of professional degrees in a 1965 federal law that the law said were not an exhaustive list:
The confusion and controversy stem from a 1965 federal law, which defines a “professional degree” as one that “signifies both completion of the academic requirements for beginning practice in a given profession and a level of professional skill beyond that normally required for a bachelor’s degree.”
The definition goes on to list examples of a professional degree, including:
- Pharmacy (Pharm.D.)
- Dentistry (D.D.S. or D.M.D.)
- Veterinary Medicine (D.V.M.)
- Chiropractic (D.C. or D.C.M.)
- Law (L.L.B. or J.D.)
- Medicine (M.D.)
- Optometry (O.D.)
- Osteopathic Medicine (D.O.)
- Podiatry (D.P.M., D.P., or Pod.D.)
- Theology (M.Div., or M.H.L.)
While the definition states that the list is not exhaustive and that professional licensure is also generally required, past Department of Education committee meetings this fall to discuss student loan regulations and other issues have used the initial description that includes only those ten degrees [Kate Perez, “Nursing Is No Longer Considered a ‘Professional Degree.’ What Changed?” USA Today, 2025.11.21].
Whether education or nursing are “professional” fields or not isn’t just an academic debate; it affects the availability of student loans for graduate students:
Graduate students pursuing “professional degrees” on the defined list are able to borrow up to $50,000 per year and up to $200,000 overall. But for students in graduate programs that are not considered “professional degrees,” loans are capped at $20,500 per year. Graduate programs are limited to $100,000 overall [Perez, 2025.11.21].
Nurses aren’t happy:
“Nurses make up the largest segment of the healthcare workforce and the backbone of our nation’s health system,” said Jennifer Mensik Kennedy, PhD, MBA, RN, NEA-BC, FAAN, president of the American Nurses Association. “At a time when healthcare in our country faces a historic nurse shortage and rising demands, limiting nurses’ access to funding for graduate education threatens the very foundation of patient care. In many communities across the country, particularly in rural and underserved areas, advanced practice registered nurses ensure access to essential, high-quality care that would otherwise be unavailable. We urge the Department of Education to recognize nursing as the essential profession it is and ensure access to loan programs that make advanced nursing education possible” [American Nurses Association, statement, 2025.11.10].
This simple definition change will make the nursing shortage worse. It will also do more damage to public health:
This exclusion sends an alarming signal about the understanding of the public health workforce and risks undermining the nation’s ability to prepare practitioners who protect and promote the health of all populations. At a time when threats to public health are escalating, leaving out the very degrees that train our frontline leaders is both short-sighted and dangerous [Association of Schools & Programs of Public Health, statement, 2025.11.12].
Helping Americans become nurses, teachers, social workers, and architects does a lot more to make America great than sending billions to Argentina or building golden ballrooms. But such are the selfish, short-sighted priorities of the current regime.