How Has Access to Nursing Student Loans Changed in 2026?
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On July 4th, 2025, President Donald Trump signed The One Big Beautiful Bill into law. Some benefits of this act include no tax on overtime, no tax on tips, and no tax on social security.
On the other hand, this act significantly reshapes federal student loans by lowering borrowing limits, eliminating Graduate PLUS loans completely, and ending the SAVE repayment plan by 2028. These changes drastically affect nursing education and nurses’ borrowing capacity.
The Impact on Student Loans
The One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA) placed new, stricter caps on federal loans for undergraduates, graduate students, and parent PLUS loans effective July 1st, 2026. Borrowing limits have been reduced, along with the number of repayment plan options for federal student loan borrowers. This includes different terms for many loans and a restructuring of eligibility for post-graduate financing. According to CNBC, 61 percent of college students say they will be impacted by this act.
Undergraduate nursing students should not see any difference in how much they can borrow themselves. The annual limit for dependent undergraduate students remains $5,500 to $7,500 per year, and the lifetime limit is $31,000. For independent undergraduate students, it remains $9,500 to $12,500 per year, with a lifetime limit of $57,500.
However, graduate students in specific fields such as nursing will see the biggest change, with annual limits remaining $20,500 but lifetime limits decreasing from $138,500 to $100,000.
Medical and law programs, by contrast, have increased their borrowing limits to $50,000 per year and $200,000 (lifetime). This does not, however, apply to nursing or advanced practice nursing programs; more on that below.
Graduate PLUS loans are credit-based, federal, unsubsidized loans for graduate students that allow them to borrow up to the total cost of attendance. They provide fixed interest rates and deferred repayment plans while borrowers are enrolled at least half-time.
Currently, these loans bridge the gap between financial aid and the full cost of education, which can be expensive for professional programs such as medical school and advanced practice nursing courses. The OBBBA will completely eliminate Graduate PLUS loan programs. Consequently, many graduate students may be unable to afford the entirety of their program. They will have to apply for private student loans instead, which tend to have variable, higher interest rates and do not offer income-driven repayment plans.
Most importantly, private student loans do not qualify for public service loan forgiveness—a popular government program that forgives the remaining balance on federal student loans for borrowers working in public service.Additionally, Parent PLUS LOANS are affected by the OBBBA. Parent PLUS loans are unsubsidized, low-interest federal loans for parents of dependent undergraduate students. Parents use these loans to help their children pay for college expenses not covered by other financial aid. These loans are in the parent’s name, and the parent is exclusively responsible for repayment. Previously, parents could borrow up to the full cost of attendance for their child’s education. With the OBBBA, parent PLUS loans have annual caps of $20,000 per year and $65,000 lifetime limits per student.
New Student Loan Repayment Policies
Over the last decade, the U.S. student loan burden has intensified greatly, with total outstanding federal student loan debt surpassing $1.6 trillion in 2025. The SAVE Plan is a federal income-driven repayment plan launched in 2023 that allows borrowers to make lower monthly payments based on income and offers interest subsidies to prevent balance growth.
These payments are based on income and family size, centered on income above 225 percent of the poverty guideline. Most direct federal student loans are eligible, not including Parent PLUS loans. As long as the monthly payment is made, any unpaid interest is waived, which would guarantee the loan balance does not increase. By 2025, 60 percent of borrowers had enrolled in the SAVE plan.
The OBBBA is retiring the SAVE plan, requiring about 7 million enrollees to transition to other repayment options. Borrowers will be able to make standard fixed payments over 10 years or income-driven repayments. Those with larger initial balances may extend their payments under the new tiered standard plan over 15, 20, or 25 years. This allows the government to recover more of the original lending costs and lowers average loan forgiveness.
Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) is a federal program that forgives the remaining balance on federal student loans for borrowers who work full-time in public service. Nurses typically qualify working in a non-profit or government health system such as federally qualified health centers, nonprofit hospitals, or the Veterans Affairs. After borrowers make 120 qualifying monthly payments over 10 years under a qualifying repayment plan, while employed by a qualifying employer, the remaining balance is forgiven tax-free. This has saved nursing professionals and healthcare workers hundreds of thousands of dollars in student loan repayment in recent years.
OBBBA does not alter PSLF directly, yet changes to repayment plans and loan perimeters indirectly affect which borrowers will benefit from PSLF. Today, federal student loan payments made on either the income-driven or 10-year standard plan count toward PSLF. Moving forward, payments made on the new tiered standard plan will not count towards PSLF forgiveness.
Additionally, since student loan payments will be higher overall, forgiveness will be smaller, especially for higher-income borrowers.
Nursing No Longer Considered a “Professional Degree”
Nurses and nursing associations across the U.S. have been concerned by the Department of Education’s recent decision to exclude nursing from its definition of recognized professional degree programs. The Department of Education proposed a narrower definition of a professional degree, which excludes nursing programs. Graduate nursing degrees are being classified as “standard” programs.
Meanwhile, other health-related fields such as medicine, pharmacy, and dentistry remain classified as professional degrees. The requirement to be classified as a professional degree program includes, doctoral-level programs that require six or more years of postsecondary study; professional licensure; academic completion and professional skill beyond that normally required for a bachelor’s degree; and classification within the same Classification of Instruction Programs (CIP) codes as medicine, dentistry, pharmacy, law, and related fields.
This update will go into effect on July 1st, 2026. This significantly limits student loan access to nursing students and advanced education opportunities. Graduate nursing students, such as nurse practitioners, often rely on federal loans to fund their degrees. Since nursing is no longer considered a professional degree, students will face stricter borrowing caps under these federal loan programs.
Nurse anesthesia and nurse practitioner students will only be able to borrow a maximum of $100,000 for their overall program. These are now three-year doctoral programs that can cost between $60,000 to $200,000 for the entire duration, depending on the school. Moreover, many programs do not allow their full-time graduate students to work, so students will need additional loans to cover their cost of living.
As a result, advanced practice nursing students will have to rely more on private student loans with higher interest rates and may face greater financial strain while pursuing their degrees. Students may have to reduce course loads and work while enrolled. This will lead to reduced access to graduate programs for students from low-income socio-economic statuses. Private student loans also have fewer protections, such as income-driven repayment. As stated above, if graduate nursing students have to take out more private student loans, this will decrease the amount of PSLF they qualify for.
The Impact of the OBBBA on the Future of Nursing
The OBBBA and Department of Education changes make graduate nursing education less affordable. These barriers to advanced nursing education will result in scarcer qualified candidates pursuing advanced practice roles in anesthesia, leadership, nurse practitioner, and clinical nurse specialties. That means fewer advanced practice nurses, educators, and researchers entering the workforce.
It will likely exacerbate the nursing shortage, especially in rural and underserved areas. It will reduce the number of nurses continuing their education to become nurse educators, which in turn, will further contribute to the nursing shortage. These changes will limit essential roles such as nurse practitioners in primary care who are already serving in demand areas and already experiencing deficits in their field.
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Sophia Khawly, MSN
WriterSophia Khawly is a traveling nurse practitioner from Miami, Florida. She has been a nurse for 14 years and has worked in nine different states. She likes to travel in her spare time and has visited over 40 countries.
Being a traveling nurse practitioner allows her to combine her love of learning, travel, and serving others. Learn more about Sophia at www.travelingNP.com.