Nursing groups sue over new limits on federal student loans

Several nursing groups are suing the federal government over rules setting new caps on how much nurses can borrow from federal programs for advanced degrees.

The U.S. Department of Education recently ruled that nursing was excluded from a list of professional degrees, and nurses say that’s going to make it harder to pursue advanced degrees.

Under the new rule, nurses and some other healthcare professionals would be limited in how much they can borrow from federal loan programs for graduate degrees: $20,500 annually and $100,000 over a lifetime. If nursing had been listed as a professional degree, those pursuing graduate nursing degrees could borrow $50,000 annually and a total of $200,000.

Nursing leaders also argue that the education department’s policy is ultimately going to hurt the pipeline of developing new nurses, even as many health systems struggle to find and keep nurses.

The American Nurses Association, which fought the education department over the rule, and several other nursing groups said late Friday that they are suing the Education Department. The groups say hundreds of thousands registered their voices in opposition to the rule.

Jennifer Mensik Kennedy, president of the American Nurses Association, made it clear that the fight isn’t over.

“The Department of Education ignored the voices of nurses and nurse allies who spoke out against this rule throughout their rulemaking process,” Mensik Kennedy said in a statement. “Increasing barriers to post-baccalaureate nursing education doesn't just limit opportunities and access to education, it limits patients' access to timely care from trusted, highly trained practitioners.”

The Education Department has said that the borrowing limits only apply to graduate programs. But Mensik Kennedy told Chief Healthcare Executive® in a December interview that the federal policy is going to have an impact on the nursing industry.

“This will stop people from going to school to be advanced practice nurses,” she said.

If fewer nurses pursue graduate degrees, Mensik Kennedy has argued that the end result will be fewer nurses getting trained in undergraduate programs because there will be fewer instructors.

"It's going to be a big barrier for getting new nurses into undergraduate programs," Mensik Kennedy says.

“We're going to have less faculty because we're going to have less people being able to go to school to become faculty,” she explains. “And we're also going to have less primary care providers in the community in a time when we're drastically short of primary care and registered nurses. So none of this makes sense.”

Other groups filing suit include the American Association of Nurse Anesthesiology, the Association of Women's Health, Obstetric and Neonatal Nurses, the American College of Nurse Midwives, the American Holistic Nurses Association, the Association of Pediatric Hematology/Oncology Nurses, the Health Ministries Association (HMA), the National Association of Clinical Nurse Specialists, and the National Association of Nurse Practitioners in Women's Health.

Nursing and healthcare groups are getting plenty of backing. Twenty-four states and Washington, D.C., have also filed a suit to block the Education Department’s policy, NPR reports.

The suit filed by the states makes several references to improperly excluding nurses from its list of professional degrees. The states object to the Education Department’s argument of nurses being supervised by licensed professionals.

“The Department’s lack-of-supervision requirement is not in the statute, and the Department has pointed to nothing that suggests Congress intended it to consider this factor in defining ‘professional degree,’ the states say in their suit

The states also argue that nursing schools will also see less revenue due to the changes; each state in the suit has a nursing school. The suit references the University of Maryland School of Nursing, where the cost of a Master’s of Science in Nursing degree is $77,000.

“The university will suffer ‘a loss of revenue’ if—as the Department concedes is likely—not all students can obtain private loans to cover the gap,” the states argue in their suit.

The American Nurses Association says that more than 80,000 qualified applicants for nursing school were turned away last year. Mensik Kennedy said many were turned away because of a lack of nurse faculty, and she said the new policy would exacerbate the problem.

“We have an aging population of people,” Mensik Kennedy said last fall. “​​We have an aging population of nurses, too. We've got a lot of baby boomers who are retiring, and we need to replace them. We do not have the luxury of time. We need to make sure we get the pipeline strong up front and not wait.”

Mensik Kennedy has said private loans are harder to obtain, and some nurses may not qualify for those loans due to lower credit scores.

Jeff Molter, president of the American Association of Nurse Anesthesiology, said the group is worried about the department’s decision “to limit federal student loan access for advanced practice nursing degrees.

“This policy will constrict the anesthesia workforce pipeline at a time when patient demand is growing nationwide, ultimately reducing access to essential procedures like surgery, childbirth, and cancer screenings — especially in rural and underserved communities where Certified Registered Nurse Anesthetists (CRNAs) are often the primary anesthesia providers,” he said in a statement.