Gov. Andy Beshear has joined 24 attorneys general and one other governor in submitting a letter to the U.S. Department of Education (ED) opposing a proposed rule under the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (H.R. 1 – 119th Congress).
The rule would cap federal student loans for graduate students in nursing, physician assistance and other health fields; a change that could worsen healthcare shortages across the country.
“Healthcare workers are heroes who save lives, and any American who chooses to pursue this noble career should feel they have options to do so,” Beshear said. “Capping federal student loans would make graduate degrees more expensive and unattainable while also fueling the dangerous healthcare shortages across our country. This rule is unlawful, unnecessary and harmful to families and our communities – especially those in rural America who are already feeling the impacts of the ‘big, ugly bill.’”
H.R. 1 limits the amount of federal student loans that graduate students can borrow to $20,500 each year, up to $100,000 in total. Students pursuing “professional” degrees, however, are permitted to borrow up to $50,000 a year for a total $200,000.
Congress broadly defined “professional degree” as any degree that “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.”
Congress also provided a list of ten examples such as medical degrees and law degrees but specified that “professional degree[s] … are not limited to” those examples. The proposed rule under H.R. 1 would take Congress’s list of 10 examples, plus Clinical Psychology, and make it exclusive – meaning only students pursuing those degrees, and no others, would be eligible to borrow up to the higher loan amounts.
The letter urges ED to abandon its narrow definition of “professional degree” and devise a broader one that encompasses the full spectrum of degrees intended by Congress.
Joining Beshear in submitting the comments are the attorneys general of Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, the District of Columbia, Hawai’i, Illinois, Maine, Massachusetts, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Virginia, Washington and Wisconsin and the governor of Kansas.
Here is where you can read the letter in its entirety.
By Tom Latek, Kentucky Today
