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Despite the possibility of a government shutdown next week, the Education Department is slated to begin the complicated endeavor of determining how to carry out the sweeping higher ed changes in Congress\u2019s One Big Beautiful Bill Act. <\/p>\n
The agenda for the weeklong meeting, which kicks off Monday, includes hammering out details about loan repayment plans and how to help struggling borrowers return to good standing. The key issue on the table, though, will likely be determining how best to differentiate between graduate and professional degree programs for future borrowers.<\/p>\n
The terms \u201cgraduate\u201d and \u201cprofessional\u201d were once nothing more than a trivial self-prescribed classification. But under the Republicans\u2019 new law, they have become critical labels that could alter which college programs get more federal aid. For example, under the new plan, student borrowers in a graduate program will be limited to $20,500 per year or $100,000 total, whereas those enrolled in a professional program will be able to borrow more than double that. <\/p>\n
And while lawmakers on Capitol Hill gave the department a foundational definition of what qualifies as professional in the bill, it\u2019s up to Education Under Secretary Nicholas Kent and the negotiated rule-making advisory committee to write rules that detail how that definition will work in practice. (The committee is scheduled to meet for another weeklong session in November, and only after that can the department finalize its proposal and open the floor for public comment.)<\/p>\n
Some university lobbyists and career associations want the department to include more programs in the professional bucket and make a comprehensive list of those that qualify. Others recommend using a broad definition and then letting institutions sort the programs. Consumer protection advocates, however, are urging the department to stick to the original, more narrow definition in an effort to prevent greater levels of student debt. <\/p>\n
The department\u2019s initial proposal, released this week, stuck largely to the 10 programs cited in the existing definition but added a catch-all clause to add \u201cany other degrees designated by the Secretary through rulemaking.\u201d<\/p>\n
To Clare McCann, a former Education Department official and now managing director of policy for the Postsecondary Education and Economics Research Center at American University, the initial proposal shows that the department doesn\u2019t quite know how it wants to define a professional program.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is a really complicated issue,\u201d she said. \u201cSo it seems clear to me that the department is planning to use this first session to gather ideas and feedback but is not planning to come to the table with a real proposal of its own.\u201d<\/p>\n
Further complicating the issue, McCann and others say, it\u2019s going to be difficult for the department to finalize its rule fast enough to give students and institutions enough time to prepare. (Currently, the new loan caps are slated to kick in as of July\u00a01, 2026.)<\/p>\n
As McCann explained, the earliest colleges and universities could expect to see a proposed rule\u2014let alone a finalized one\u2014would be later this fall. And at that point, many prospective students have already started receiving acceptance letters.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere will be many people making decisions about whether and where they\u2019re going to graduate school, and they\u2019ll be doing that in a vacuum, without final rules about what they\u2019ll be able to borrow and how they\u2019re going to be able to repay it,\u201d she said. \u201cSo this whole regulatory process is going to be an incredible time crunch.\u201d<\/p>\n
The current definition of \u201cprofessional,\u201d which is laid out in the Higher Education Act of 1965, states that in order to qualify as professional a degree must signify that a student has the skills necessary beyond a bachelor\u2019s degree in order to practice a specific profession.<\/p>\n
Later it adds that \u201cprofessional licensure is also generally required,\u201d and provides a short but nonexhaustive list of programs that could fit the bill, including: pharmacy, dentistry, medicine, osteopathy, law, optometry, podiatry, veterinary medicine, chiropractic medicine and theology. (That list served as the foundation for the department\u2019s proposal.)<\/p>\n
Some groups, like the National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities, made clear in their public comments that they interpret this definition to be an intentionally \u201cflexible\u201d and \u201cinclusive approach.\u201d And based on that, they encouraged the department to maintain a broad definition and allow institutions to self-certify their programs with periodic review from the department.<\/p>\n
Jordan Wicker, the senior vice president of legislative and regulatory affairs at Career Education Colleges and Universities, a lobbying group for for-profit institutions, added that the economy and higher education landscape are constantly evolving\u2014pointing to the need for a broader definition.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t know that you want to re-regulate a comprehensive list any time curriculums or programs change,\u201d he told Inside Higher Ed<\/em>.<\/p>\n Others, including the American Council on Education, agree that the interpretation should be broad but say the best way to ensure that is the case is by creating a more complete list of eligible programs. \u201cAt the very least,\u201d ACE said in its comment letter, the list should include dozens of clinical and health science programs highlighted under an existing regulation known as financial value transparency. On top of that, it also urges the department to include about 15 additional programs, including architecture, accounting, social work, education and word languages.<\/p>\n Halaevalu Vakalahi, president of the Council on Social Work Education, agreed, arguing that many programs like hers meet the current definition. <\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019ve always identified ourselves as a profession,\u201d she said. \u201cThere\u2019s licensure, there\u2019s accreditation\u2014all of the things that we have as part of the social [work] profession are also in the list that currently exists on what is a profession.\u201d<\/p>\n But Third Way, a left-of-center think tank, drew the exact opposite conclusion, arguing that Congress intended for the definition to be stringent and address \u201cunnecessary student debt.\u201d (Graduate student debt accounts for nearly half of the student loan portfolio, raising concerns for lawmakers and advocates.)<\/p>\n \u201cWhile this list is not exclusive, Congress did not indicate that it intended to include any other fields in crafting the OBBBA loan limits,\u201d senior policy adviser Ben Cecil wrote in a recent blog post about the distinction. \u201cBy codifying this list as written, the Department can best enforce the legislative intent of ensuring that students aren\u2019t overborrowing for graduate school and have manageable debt compared to their program\u2019s earnings.\u201d<\/p>\n With the different proposals on the table, those interviewed agreed that it will be rather difficult for the committee to reach consensus. If the committee doesn\u2019t reach an agreement, the department is free to interpret the definition cited in OBBBA however it wants.<\/p>\n McCann from PEER, who worked at the department during the Obama and Biden administrations, said that until she starts to see the debate play out, it\u2019s hard to know which approach will win. But no matter what, she added it will likely be an uphill climb.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s a challenging issue for negotiators, and there are a lot of competing interests with pretty high stakes attached,\u201d she said. So \u201cthis is going to be a difficult committee on which to get that kind of agreement.\u201d<\/p>\n Todd Jones, president of the Association of Independent Colleges and Universities of Ohio and a former Republican staffer in the department, said that he expects the Trump administration will lean toward a more narrow definition if the committee doesn\u2019t reach consensus. At that point, he added, it will be up to the individual types of programs to lobby for why they should be added to the list.<\/p>\n \u201cThe question is, what has the administration already decided that they are going to give on?\u201d Jones said. \u201cAnd the things I\u2019ve heard while I was in D.C. over the past few months indicate that there may not be support for some of these social science higher degrees being considered professions and instead simply being considered master\u2019s.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Despite the possibility of a government shutdown next week, the Education Department is slated to begin the complicated endeavor of determining how to carry out the sweeping higher ed changes in Congress\u2019s One Big Beautiful Bill Act. The agenda for the weeklong meeting, which kicks off Monday, includes hammering out details about loan repayment plans<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":24403,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[57],"tags":[6457,580,788,6231,3502,348],"class_list":{"0":"post-24402","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-education","8":"tag-grad","9":"tag-issue","10":"tag-key","11":"tag-panel","12":"tag-professional","13":"tag-programs"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24402","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=24402"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24402\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/24403"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=24402"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=24402"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=24402"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}High-Stakes Talks<\/h2>\n