Today, U.S. Senators Jeff Merkley (D-OR) and Roger Wicker (R-MS) introduced a new bill in response to a decision by the U.S. Department of Education (ED) that fails to classify post-baccalaureate nursing degrees as “professional degrees,” imposing stricter limits on federal student loans for nurses.
The bipartisan Nursing is a Professional Degree Act provides a simple fix and guarantees nursing students pursuing post-baccalaureate nursing programs can access affordable student loans. More specifically, this bill classifies post-baccalaureate nursing degrees as “professional degrees,” which would entitle nurses taking out federal student loans to a cap of $50,000 annually and $200,000 in the aggregate.
“On behalf of the American Association of Nurse Anesthesiology (AANA), we thank Sens. Merkley and Wicker for introducing this critical legislation to fix the Education Department’s harmful and misinformed student loan rulemaking that will threaten advanced nursing education,” said AANA President Jeff Molter, MSN, MBA, CRNA. “The Department’s refusal to rightfully classify Certified Registered Nurse Anesthetist (CRNA) and other Advanced Practice Registered Nursing (APRN) degrees as professional degrees, despite meeting all the statutory criteria, will unnecessarily harm the healthcare workforce pipeline by putting graduate education out of reach for many qualified nurses, and will worsen provider shortages.” Read the press release.
