Lawmakers urge Department of Education to recognize nursing as a professional degree

A bipartisan group of 140 lawmakers has sent a letter urging the U.S. Department of Education to revise student loan rules to include post-baccalaureate nursing degrees in the definition of “professional” degree. A new proposal would limit student loans to $100,000 for graduate programs, but that rises to $200,000 for professional degrees. The lawmakers argue that nurses are the largest share of the U.S. health care workforce, and excluding nurses from the “professional” category would limit borrowing at a time when more than 138,000 nurses have left the workforce in the past three years. It’s estimated that up to 90% of nurses are women.