11 programs meet criteria for professional degrees
President Donald Trump and his administration will begin imposing new limits for federal student loans disbursed on or after July 1, 2026.
Undergraduate borrowers will have the same current limit of up to $7,500 a year for dependent students, depending on their class year. But graduate and professional students will see new limits of up to $20,500 per year ($100,000 total) for graduate studies and $50,000 a year ($200,000 total) for professional programs.
Graduate PLUS loans, which previously allowed students to borrow up to their total cost of attendance, will be eliminated.
According to the proposed regulation, a professional degree “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 Department of Education has named 11 degree fields that meet the requirements to be considered professional, and thus eligible for higher loan limits under the new rules:
- Pharmacy (Pharm. D.)
- Dentistry doctorate (D.D.S. or D.M.S.)
- 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.)
- Clinical psychology (Psy.D. or Ph.D.)
The addition of clinical psychology came out of the department’s recent negotiated rulemaking session where stakeholders debated the loan limit rule and how it should be applied.
The department also said programs in at least 44 other fields could qualify if they meet certain criteria, including giving students a “level of professional skill beyond that normally required for a bachelor’s degree,” generally resulting in a doctoral level degree and requiring professional licensure to begin practice.
Potentially eligible programs include a number of other pharmacy degrees, clinical counseling and theological studies. Institutions are responsible for determining whether a program meets the requirements to be considered a professional degree or not, says Sarah Austin, a policy analyst at the National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators.
Professional organizations respond
Some professional organizations have expressed concern over the list of degrees eligible for the $200,000 aggregate federal loan limit and the Department of Education’s definition of professional programs.
“Despite broad recognition of the complexity, rigor, and necessity of post-baccalaureate nursing education, the Department’s proposal defines professional programs so narrowly that nursing, the nation’s largest healthcare profession, remains excluded,” The American Association of Colleges of Nursing said in a press release on Nov. 7. “Should this proposal be finalized, the impact on our already-challenged nursing workforce would be devastating.”
“Declassifying the [Master of Social Work] and [Doctorate of Social Work] degrees will reduce access to affordable social work education, thereby increasing reliance on high-interest private loans,” the National Association of Social Workers’ Florida chapter said in a press release on Nov. 20.
In a fact sheet released on Nov. 24, the Department of Education said, “The definition of a ‘professional degree’ is an internal definition used by the Department to distinguish among programs that qualify for higher loan limits, not a value judgement about the importance of programs. It has no bearing on whether a program is professional in nature or not.”
The intention behind the loan limits is to discourage borrowers from taking on more debt than they will be able to handle and to encourage institutions to rein in tuition costs, the department said.
The loan limit regulation is not final, however. The Department of Education will publish the regulation in its current form in the federal register in the coming months where the public will have the opportunity to give feedback before it becomes final.
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