U.S. Secretary of Education Linda McMahon testifies before the House Education and Workforce Committee on May 14, 2026. The hearing examined the Department of Education’s policies and priorities. (Photo: Heather Diehl/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON — U.S. Secretary of Education Linda McMahon reacted sharply Thursday to upcoming changes to the law federal student loan system which will impose up-to-date debt limits for professional and graduate students.
Lawmakers specifically aimed to set stricter loan limits for students pursuing advanced programs that do not fall under the department’s “professional” classification, such as nursing, teaching and social work.
Members of both sides of the aisle expressed their criticism during a hearing before the U.S. House of Representatives Education and Workforce Committee, during which McMahon defended the upcoming change to federal student loans as well as separate, ongoing efforts by President Donald Trump’s administration to dismantle the 46-year-old department.
McMahon emphasized that her department “does not make any judgment based on professional degrees” and instead seeks to “lower the cost” of tuition.
The secretary pointed to “exorbitant” college costs, noting that “students are burdened with debt.”
Mega-accounting provision
The inevitable changes to the federal student loan system stem from the Republican Congress’ tax and the mega spending-cutting bill that Trump signed into law last year. This month’s section published the finalized regulations in accordance with the directive of the Act. Most regulations will come into force on July 1.
The regulations eliminate the Grad PLUS program, which allowed graduate and professional students to borrow up to the full cost of attendance.
Graduate student loans will also have an annual limit of $20,500 and a total limit of $100,000. Professional student loans will have an annual limit of $50,000 and a total limit of $200,000.
However, programs that fall into the faculty’s “professional” category – and therefore qualify for the higher debt limit – are constrained to pharmacy, dentistry, veterinary medicine, chiropractic, law, medicine, optometry, osteopathic medicine, podiatry, theology and clinical psychology.
The agency also clarified in the agency information sheet on the final regulations that “professional” student classifications “do not express a value judgment about the importance of any profession or field” but instead serve a “loan administration function.”
Tone-deaf message.
Rep. Jahana Hayes expressed “very concern” about the department’s classification of “professional” students, noting that these restrictions “make it more difficult for nursing, social workers (and) teachers to secure higher education, especially graduate degrees.”
The Connecticut Democrat reacted sharply to McMahon’s claim that the reform is intended to lower the cost of college, saying, “The people who can afford it are not applying for these programs, the people who can afford it are not in need of student loans, the people who come from communities like mine and just want to come back and serve those communities are the ones who will suffer the most, not the colleges, not the universities, not the board, not the top 1%.”
Republican Joe Courtney, also a Connecticut Democrat, sharply criticized the legislation’s exclusion of nurses from the “professional” category as “one of the most offensive and tone-deaf messages to 5 million nurses imaginable across the country.”
Courtney added that the exclusion “will actually raise the cost of educating critically needed nurses” and pointed to a petition filed by American Nurses Association which collected over 245,000 signatures and urged the department to include nursing programs in its “professional” definition.
McMahon defended her department’s “professional” classification to the panel, arguing that the agency “has looked very, very carefully at the entire nursing profession” and “95% of nurses in programs do not exceed those limits.”
The Secretary added that “78% of nurses applying to postgraduate programs do not exceed or meet these limits.”
Even some Republican members of the panel, whose party favored a “big, beautiful” bill establishing a student loan overhaul, questioned the up-to-date limits.
Congresswoman Lisa McClain, chairwoman of the House Republican Conference, asked McMahon “is there any way or do you have any thoughts on: Could we consider opening graduate nurse programs to expand or eliminate these limits because it provides a good return on investment and we certainly need them?”
In the GOP tax cuts and spending bill, “one of the things we did was impose caps, but we had some exceptions and caveats… and I think this sector of graduate nursing programs was just an unintended consequence, perhaps overlooked,” the Michigan Republican said.
“I’m here to really support these programs because I think they’re incredibly important.”
Legislation to reverse caps
There is a bipartisan effort underway in Congress to both address future loan limits and expand the definition of a “professional” student.
Rep. Mike Lawler, Republican from New York, introduced the bill in December it would expand the definition of “professional” to include “nursing, physical therapy, occupational therapy, pastoral care, social work, audiology, physician assistant, public health, business administration and management, accounting, architecture, secondary education, and special education.”
Representative Tim Kennedy of New York introduced legislation in December with fellow Democratic Reps. Jill Tokuda of Hawaii and Rep. Shomari Dane of Alabama, which would ensure graduate and professional students are subject to the same annual and cumulative loan limits.
Rep. Ritchie Torres, New York Democrat, presented the bill it would “restore full borrowing limits that have been tightened” under the GOP tax and spending cut mega-bill.
In the upper house, Senator Angela Alsobrooks, a Democrat from Maryland, introduced a companion bill to Torres’ bill in March, which has sparked more than a dozen co-sponsors.
Meanwhile, a handful of Democratic lawmakers brought the resolution this month, which aims to reverse upcoming student loan regulations through the Congressional Review Act, a procedural tool that Congress can utilize to invalidate certain actions by federal agencies.
These legislators are: Republican Suzanne Bonamici and Sens. Jeff Merkley of Oregon, Republican John Mannion of New York, Republican Lauren Underwood of Illinois and Alsobrooks.
