Student Loans May Be Trickier for These 8 Careers
Written by
Nicole Symon
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Molly Sullivan
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In line with President Donald Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill, the Department of Education placed new limits on how much money students can borrow in federal student loans to cover the costs of graduate programs. Those limits fall into two categories: higher limits for degrees the Department of Education deems “professional” and lower borrowing limits for all other graduate degrees.
For those considering pursuing a graduate program, this news may be worrisome. More than half of those with a graduate degree say they took out student loans to finance their educations, and the vast majority of student loans are through the federal government. So, what exactly are the student loan borrowing rules, and which careers do they affect?
New Federal Student Loan Borrowing Limits
Previously, there were no lifetime borrowing limits. Both undergraduate and graduate students were able to take out federal student loans for up to the full cost of attending their programs. Beginning in 2026, that will no longer be the case.
Under the new rules, graduate students will only be able to borrow up to $200,000 in federal student loans over their lifetimes. And this $200,000 limit only applies to degree fields deemed “professional” by the Department of Education.
The professional graduate degrees eligible for higher loan limits under these new regulations are:
- Medicine
- Law
- Clinical psychology
- Optometry
- Pharmacy
- Podiatry
- Veterinary medicine
- Osteopathic medicine
- Dentistry doctorate
- Chiropractic
- Theology
Degrees Not Considered Professional
These 11 degrees represent only a small fraction of the graduate programs students might want to pursue. Some notable exclusions from this list include graduate degrees in nursing and social work. In response to concern and frustration about nursing specifically not being included in the list of professional degrees, the Department of Education released a fact sheet stressing that “professional degree” is simply an internal definition — “not a value judgment about the importance of programs.”
However, students pursuing graduate programs other than these designated degrees will only be eligible for up to $100,000 in federal student loans — half the amount available to professional degree students.
The graduate degrees currently not considered professional that are subject to these lower loan limits of $20,500 per year and up to $100,000 total include:
- Nursing
- Social work
- Education
- Accounting
- Audiology
- Physical therapy
- Physician assistant
- Architecture
It’s worth noting that the Department of Education has not yet finalized these rules. The list of degrees classified as professional and eligible for higher borrowing limits may change.
In addition, federal student loans for undergraduate programs are not affected by these new rules. The changes take effect in 2026, but current graduate students are grandfathered in and not subject to the new loan limits.
The Impact on Graduate Degrees and Employment
In a press release, the Department of Education stated that the federal student loan caps will help drive down the prices of graduate programs. The idea is that if students are not able to borrow as much money to pursue their degrees, graduate programs will have to adjust their tuition and fees accordingly.
The loan limits have been met with some criticism, however. The American Association of College Nurses, for instance, stated in a press release, “Should this proposal be finalized, the impact on our already-challenged nursing workforce would be devastating.”
The National Association of Social Workers’ Florida chapter emphasized that these student loan changes will “reduce access to affordable social work education, thereby increasing reliance on high-interest student loans.”
Going forward, prospective graduate students will need to carefully weigh the costs of the programs they’re interested in against the applicable federal student loan limits and their potential earnings in those fields. Say, for example, a nurse is considering a graduate program that will cost $120,000 to complete. That’s $20,000 more than the $100,000 federal borrowing limit for degrees that the Department of Education has not designated as professional. The nurse would either need to cover the extra $20,000 out of pocket, take out $20,000 in private student loans or hope to find a less expensive graduate nursing program.
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