At issue: a working list of “professional” programs that require advanced degrees and licenses. Circulated online last month, it amounts to just 11 fields, including doctors, dentists and attorneys, among others.

Left out are virtually all other professions that, in many cases, require advanced degrees and licenses. 

The proposed change is part of a GOP effort to trim not just student debt and federal spending but college costs more broadly. 

In practical terms, enrolling in a “professional” program would give students the ability to borrow up to $50,000 per year in federal loans, or $200,000 over the course of their graduate school career. By contrast, programs that don’t fall into one of the 11 fields would give students access to just $20,500 a year, or $100,000 total. That often doesn’t cover the cost of a graduate education, advocates say, leaving students to rely on families or expensive private loans.

“It is a bad situation for a lot of professions,” said Jonathan Fansmith, senior vice president for government relations at the , which represents college presidents. The council has over the list, saying the U.S. Department of Education should broaden it to include, among others, nurses, social workers and many kinds of teachers.

In a , the American Association of Colleges of Nursing said it was “deeply concerned” by the department’s proposed definition, saying it “excludes nursing and significantly limits student loan access.”

In a statement, Education Department spokeswoman Ellen Keast blamed social media “misinformation” about the rule-making process for confusion about the administration’s moves. Much of the uproar has spread via videos on sites like and .

Keast said the plans are still in development, and that reducing lending limits will reduce students’ costs. “We expect that institutions charging tuition rates well above market prices will consider lowering tuition thanks to these historic reforms,” she said.

Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, told The 74 the student debt crisis “will not be solved by making arbitrary judgements about which professions ‘deserve’ support. Lifetime and annual borrowing caps hit career-changers and graduate students hardest, especially as the cost of higher education continues to rise.”

AFT also represents nurses, librarians, higher education faculty and graduate students who teach and do research.

Dina Kastner, public policy and advocacy manager for the National Association of Social Workers, said federal loan limits “will really have an impact” on social work students.

“For people who are going to graduate school — particularly in a profession like social work, where a graduate degree is needed for a lot of the work that social workers do — it’s definitely a problem,” she said in an interview. 

The association has been hearing “consistently” from members since details about the changes began trickling out, she said.

A consensus or a ‘stranglehold’?

While the effort is part of a broader one by Congress in President Trump’s to limit the burden of graduate student debt and cap federal borrowing, details of the two categories actually took shape as the Education Department initiated the rule-making process, said ACE’s Fansmith.

Department representatives proposed that instead of trying to figure out all of the programs that fit under the “professional” category, they would rely on a list of 10 professions originally cited as “examples” — and declared that those are eligible for the higher borrowing limits. 

“You would think it’s an oversight, because the actual statutory language says these 10 are ‘examples,’” Fansmith said. “Essentially, what they said was, ‘We are going to do the minimum possible,’ in part because they’re really trying to limit how much students can borrow.” That, despite the fact that in several fields, such as education and nursing, employers are facing huge demands for highly trained workers, he said. 

After two weeks of talks, Fansmith said, negotiators agreed to add an 11th category to the “professional” list: clinical psychology.

He called the process “completely crazy” and not what Congress intended for the lending program. “This administration is kind of shooting ourselves in the foot and doing something that’s going to have really lasting harm until it’s overturned.”

In its statement, the department did not directly address the process it followed, but in a “Myth vs. Fact” , issued Nov. 24, it called the proposed limits on lending “commonsense” and said a negotiating committee offered “a consensus definition” for the two categories — one that it says is now being bent out of shape by fear-mongering “progressive voices.”

The department said federal data indicates that 95% of nursing students borrow below the annual $100,000 loan limit “and therefore are not affected by the new caps.”

It also noted that it “has not prejudged the rulemaking process and may make changes in response to public comments” over the next few months.

That hasn’t stopped professional groups from protesting in advance. The nurses’ association said that, as of 2022, more than one in four RNs planned to leave nursing or retire over the next five years. One in five holds a master’s degree or higher, it said, and demand for nurses with advanced degrees — in clinical specialties, teaching and research — “far outstrips the supply.”

‘Drowning in debt’

The move to limit lending comes, in part, from a conservative belief that expanding financial aid via big federal loans not only creates a debt problem for students — it also allows universities to quietly inflate costs as many students borrow the entire amount needed to attend.

The idea is sometimes called , after former U.S. Education Secretary William Bennett. In 1987, he wrote that increases in federal aid had “enabled colleges and universities blithely to raise their tuitions, confident that Federal loan subsidies would help cushion the increase.”

Nearly 40 years later, the idea lives on: In 2023 when Republicans in Congress to lower college costs, Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., said, “Our federal higher education financing system contributes more to the problem than the solution. Colleges and universities using the availability of federal loans to increase their tuitions have left too many students drowning in debt without a path for success.”

Preston Cooper, a senior fellow at the conservative American Enterprise Institute, in October said Congress’s budget bill, which will Grad PLUS loans as of July 2026, has bring costs down. As an example, he said Santa Clara University School of Law next fall will give incoming full-time students a guaranteed $16,000 tuition scholarship, renewable for up to three years, the duration of the program. That amounts to an effective $16,000 cut in net tuition, he said.

The relationship between credit availability and tuition rates is difficult to track directly, but a few studies have found a connection. In 2015, economist David O. Lucca and colleagues changes in subsidized loan maximums had an effect on tuition, especially for “more expensive degrees, those offered by private institutions, and for two-year or vocational programs.” Other studies have found the effect more pronounced in .

By contrast, in 2017, , who studies college costs at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, law school tuition rates and found “far less evidence for the Bennett Hypothesis than I expected to see.” 

He offered several explanations, among them that law schools that raise tuition by more than competitors may see declines in applicants and revenue, and that greater availability of federal loans simply shifts students’ debt out of private banks and into the public system: In 2003, he noted, 36% of law students took out private loans. By 2011, five years after Grad PLUS loans debuted, it was just 5%.

Kastner of the social workers’ association said limiting how much graduate students can borrow, combined with the of Grad PLUS loans, is “a double whammy” for students. As a result, many will be forced to rely once again on private banks, which demand higher interest rates and offer fewer protections if they can’t pay loans back.

Asked if she had sympathy for the effort to lower students’ debt burden by restricting graduate borrowing, Kastner replied, “I don’t see it that way. I think it’s just making things more difficult for students.”

Kastner herself struggled to get her degree in the mid-1990s. By the time she began her social work career in Chicago in 1997, her debt amounted to about $40,000. Her monthly payment: $600, the equivalent one semi-monthly paycheck. 

She eventually got help from her parents to pay back her loans, but said squeezing new professionals will present “a real challenge,” especially for first-generation students “who may not have the family resources to really help them bridge that gap.”

ACE’s Fansmith said the department should be considering policies, such as income- based repayment and long-term loan forgiveness, that could actually address budgetary and student debt problems “without simply saying, ‘You can’t access the education.’”

He noted that the final rules, slated to take effect in July, won’t be written until early next year. In the meantime, he anticipates heated public comments from nurses, social workers, educators and other professions. 

“It wouldn’t be shocking to see Congress step in,” said Fansmith. “Nurses are, understandably and appropriately, a really sympathetic group.” And everyone sees the need for more of them, he said. “So these kinds of decisions that are really harmful for our country, honestly, might get re-evaluated.”

Beyond the “standing” issue, however, conservative justices expressed skepticism that the administration had the authority to offer up to $20,000 in debt relief without going through Congress or at least allowing public comment.

“We take very seriously the idea of separation of powers, and that power should be divided to prevent its abuse,” Chief Justice John Roberts told Nebraska Solicitor General James Campbell, representing the states. “This is a case that presents extraordinarily serious important issues about the role of Congress and about the role that we should exercise.”

Those eligible for relief — roughly 40 million borrowers — have been since November, when a Trump-appointed federal judge halted the plan. Both the Trump and Biden administrations had argued that the secretary of education has the authority under a 2003 law, the Higher Education Relief Opportunities for Students, or HEROES, to forgive student debt because of the pandemic. COVID caused severe financial harm and  increased the chances that borrowers would default on their loans, said U.S. Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar.

“Millions of Americans have struggled to pay rent, utilities, food, and many have been unable to pay their debts,” she said. 

Biden’s plan offers $10,000 in relief to borrowers earning up to $125,000 and $20,000 for Pell Grant recipients.

‘A breathtaking power’ 

In the first case, , Prelogar argued that the six states had no right to sue on behalf of the Missouri Higher Education Loan Authority, the student loan servicer that would primarily be affected if students don’t make good on their debt.

Campbell argued that because the state created the nonprofit, it has an interest in the case and that if the authority loses revenue, it won’t be able to adequately contribute to the state’s higher education programs. On the merits of the case, he argued that the administration misinterpreted HEROES.

“The secretary here asserts a breathtaking power to do anything that he thinks might reduce the risk of borrowers defaulting,” Campbell said.

Justice Elena Kagan, one of the three liberals on the court, disagreed that Education Secretary Miguel Cardona was acting outside the intent of the law. 

“Congress used its voice in enacting this piece of legislation,” she said. “Congress has authorized the use of executive power in an emergency situation.”

That’s what former Rep. George Miller of California, one of the authors of HEROES, wrote in last week. He was among those who filed amicus briefs in support of loan forgiveness, saying the law’s use of the terms “waive” or “modify” in regard to the terms of a loan includes debt cancellation. 

“Congress empowered officials to say that those requirements no longer apply — that borrowers no longer need to pay off the debt they owe,” he wrote. “And there’s no question that the COVID-19 pandemic is a ‘national emergency’ within the meaning of the law.”

In the second case, , attorney John Connolly, representing two borrowers and the conservative Job Creators Network Foundation, argued that Cardona should grant relief but should have used a different law — the Higher Education Act. That law would have required the department to seek comments from the public.

Congress, through HEROES, he said, “did not authorize the secretary to create a $400 billion debt forgiveness program behind closed doors with no public involvement.”

One of his clients, , is ineligible for the Biden program because she received loans from commercial lenders. Another, , qualifies for only $10,000 in relief because he’s not a Pell Grant recipient. Connolly said loan forgiveness is so important to the administration that Cardona would likely use the Higher Education Act to grant it if the current Biden plan were overruled. 

But Prelogar said the case uses a “Rube Goldberg theory” and takes a “circuitous route” to get relief. 

Even Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, a liberal, agreed. 

“You … have to convince us that the administration would have provided this sort of debt relief under the authority you point to,” she told Connolly. 

‘A technicality’

Observers said it’s possible that the court will never rule on the major question of whether the debt relief plan is an example of government overreach. 

The administration has “staked a lot” on the idea that the plan will be upheld “on essentially a technicality rather than on this question of whether the Department of Education had the right to do this,” said Michael Brickman, an adjunct fellow at the conservative American Enterprise Institute, who focuses on higher education. 

The arguments ran for over three hours, while demonstrators — overwhelmingly advocating for debt relief — amassed outside the court. About 100 college students with Rise, a nonprofit, had spent the night outside to get tickets to hear the arguments. 

“We get caught up in the legalese — standing issues, statute issues — that we miss the big picture around the students’ lives who are going to be impacted by what the justices decide,” said Max Lubin, the organization’s founder. “Our job as advocates is to be prepared for every possible outcome.”

Among the 26 million borrowers who were automatically eligible for the relief or submitted an application are many K-12 and early childhood educators who needed more than a bachelor’s degree to meet job requirements and advance in their careers. That has consequences for students, some say.  

Albert Sackey, principal of Hommocks Middle School in Larchmont, New York, said he knows teachers, principals and other administrators who are “strongly exploring changing career paths to everything from catering to real estate to law,” in part because of financial strain.

“We want to make sure that the people we are putting in front of our children have the necessary training and education that is needed,” said Sackey, who has two master’s degrees and a doctorate. “I graduated with my undergraduate degree in 1998 and have been paying significant student loans ever since.”

The court will hear two cases that say the administration exceeded its authority when it offered borrowers up to $20,000 in debt relief last August. One is from six GOP-led states; the second is from a conservative organization that sued on behalf of two borrowers who argue the administration’s plan leaves them out. 

Given the 6-3 conservative majority on the court, experts say it will be tough for Biden to win. Just last year, that the administration’s plan to set limits on carbon emissions crossed “constitutional lines” and exemplified government overreach.

The states — Nebraska, Arkansas, Iowa, Kansas, Missouri and South Carolina — and the plaintiffs who filed the second lawsuit will first have to convince the court that Biden’s plan would cause them financial harm and that they had legal “standing” to sue in the first place. 

“It seems likely that if there is standing, that the loan forgiveness will be overturned,” said Michelle Dimino, deputy director of education at Third Way, a center-left think tank. “Can the department do something with that level of political and economic significance without an act of Congress?”

After the administration paused repayment multiple times, Biden’s decision to go forward with the loan forgiveness plan was viewed as a politically popular move ahead of the recent midterm elections. Supporters hailed it as compassionate toward borrowers, including the who took out loans to afford college. American Federation of Teachers President said many were “eagerly awaiting the breathing room … student debt relief would bring.” But Republicans argue it’s not only illegal, but favors one group of borrowers at the expense of others. 

“Where is the forgiveness for the guy who didn’t go to college but is working to pay off the loan on his work truck?” Louisiana Sen. Bill Cassidy, ranking member of the education committee, asked earlier this month during the first meeting of the new Congress.

Others say the plan increases inflation and could leave today’s K-12 students with the impression their college debt might be slashed as well. 

“If [politicians] have the authority to give away money if they declare an emergency, there’s a lot of incentive to declare emergencies — or give it away after they’ve declared one,” said Rick Hess, a senior fellow and the director of education policy studies at the conservative American Enterprise Institute.

But Kim Cook, CEO of the National College Attainment Network, said Biden presented the plan as “one-time debt relief” and that “future students shouldn’t depend on it.” Her organization, and many others, advocate for to $13,000 so low-income students won’t have to borrow so much to go to college.

‘Continued recovery’

During this month’s State of the Union address, Biden efforts to reduce student debt, but didn’t directly reference the cases before the court. 

The administration’s argument rests on a 2003 law called — for Higher Education Relief Opportunities for Students. The law gives the education secretary the flexibility to make temporary changes to the federal student loan system in the case of a national emergency, including war.

“Student loan borrowers from all walks of life suffered profound financial harms during the pandemic,” U.S. Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona said last month when filed briefs in support of the plan. “Their continued recovery and successful repayment hinges on the Biden administration’s student debt relief plan.”

One “wild card issue,” Dimino added, is that Biden plans to end the on May 11, which could make it harder for the administration to prove its case before the court.

In addition, former Republican education secretaries wrote in that the link between HEROES and Biden’s plan is weak.

“Such a pause only ensured that affected individuals were not placed in a worse position financially,” they wrote. “It did not authorize the executive branch to cancel $400 billion in student debt and leave borrowers in a better position than they would have been in if the COVID-19 pandemic had never occurred.”

In Biden v. Nebraska, the states argue that their tax revenues would drop if students don’t pay back their loans. The Missouri Higher Education Loan Authority, for example, is a nonprofit that services student loans and contributes to the state’s higher education system. Biden’s plan, the states say, could cost the Missouri organization nearly $44 million a year and reduce what it pays the state.

Job Creators Network Foundation, an advocacy group, filed the second case, U.S. Department of Education v. Brown, on behalf of of Texas. Brown, a business owner from the Dallas-Fort Worth area, received loans from commercial lenders, making her ineligible for the Biden program. 

Taylor, a graduate of the University of Dallas, argues that limiting the maximum amount of relief — $20,000 — to Pell Grant recipients is unfair because borrowers earning far more than him will have more debt erased. He earns less than $25,000 a year, but qualified for $10,000 in loan forgiveness because he was not a Pell Grant recipient. Brown and Taylor argue that the administration didn’t give the public a chance to comment on the plan.

In the meantime, borrowers who took advantage of the Biden plan remain in limbo. 

In October, people were automatically eligible or applied for the relief. The department approved over applications before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 8th Circuit blocked the plan.

If the program is overruled, it’s unclear how soon borrowers would have to begin repayment, Dimino said.

“Borrowers are still totally in the dark,” she said. “These are really difficult circumstances for those making immediate financial decisions.”