Judge blocks lower loan caps for nursing and physical therapy students

The Education Department rewrote its student-loan rule on June 29 after a federal judge blocked the agency from applying lower borrowing caps to nursing and physical therapy programs, affecting who can afford to enter shortage-hit health fields. U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell in Washington, D.C., had issued the temporary order four days earlier, stopping the department from enforcing a narrower definition of “professional degree” before the new limits were set to take effect July 1.

The dispute is over whether graduate training in nursing, physical therapy and similar fields should be treated like other professional degrees. Under the Trump administration rule, only 11 fields qualified as professional programs, leaving nursing, accounting, architecture and physical therapy outside the category and subject to lower loan limits.

Those limits were built into the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, passed in July 2025, which ended Graduate PLUS loans and replaced them with annual and lifetime borrowing caps. Professional students were set to be able to borrow up to $50,000 a year and $200,000 total, while other graduate students would have been limited to $20,500 a year and $100,000 overall.

Howell’s order came in a lawsuit filed by eight trade organizations. Democracy Forward represented the plaintiffs. The judge said the department’s narrowing of the definition was likely not allowed without a change from Congress, a ruling that temporarily put the lower caps on hold for nursing and related programs.

The Education Department is reviewing the decision and will take “appropriate action.” Department officials had previously defended the lower caps as a way to push universities to control costs. After Howell’s order, the agency issued its revised rule as a temporary measure while it continues to fight the case in court.

The revised rule restored professional-degree treatment for nursing and some other fields, while dropping theology from the list.