N.C. Attorney General Jeff Jackson is suing the federal Department of Education over new restrictions on student loans. Jackson says the changes could make it harder to recruit nurses and other healthcare workers.
He said the new rules would reduce student loan eligibility for people pursuing degrees in nursing, physical therapy and physician assistant programs. Those fields would be excluded from the definition of "professional degrees" in new caps enacted by Congress last year for graduate student loans. Previous regulations allow students to borrow the full cost of tuition.
"This is going to have a dramatic effect on the ability to afford an education in North Carolina in these medical fields," Jackson said at a news conference Tuesday.
If fewer students can afford those degrees, the state's shortage of healthcare workers could get worse. Jackson noted that 93 of North Carolina's 100 counties already have a shortage of primary care providers, and many communities are relying on physician assistants and nurse practitioners to help address a lack of doctors.
"If this rule discourages even a fraction of students from pursuing graduate nursing education, and the evidence strongly suggests it will, rural and underserved populations across the country will feel that loss first and feel it hardest," said Debra Barksdale, president of the American Academy of Nursing.
Leigh Habegger, a first-year student in the physician assistant program at Wake Forest University, says the new rules would mean students in her program could borrow only $20,500 — half the amount that medical and dental students can borrow.
"It's clear what this rule will do: It will hamstring our pipeline of PAs in North Carolina and across the country, and it will directly affect access to healthcare for our fellow North Carolinians," Habegger said.
Jackson joined attorneys general from dozens of other states in filing the lawsuit on Tuesday. The new restrictions on student loans are part of the Trump administration's "Big, Beautiful Bill" that passed Congress last year. The restrictions are aimed at lowering the cost of graduate education programs, in an attempt to put pressure on schools to reduce tuition rates.
Jackson says the bill listed criteria for what constitutes a "professional degree" and a "graduate degree," and the healthcare degree programs clearly meet the criteria for "professional degree."
"It is relatively straightforward from a legal standpoint," Jackson said. "We don't have to make a constitutional claim, we can make an administrative law claim and just say, 'hey, Department of Education, you only have the authority as vested by Congress, you are now exceeding that authority.'"
