Dive Brief:
- A coalition of unions including the American Federation of Teachers sued the U.S. Department of Education on Tuesday over its regulatory definition of a "professional degree," which controversially excludes education graduate programs.
- Students in advanced degree programs considered “professional” by the Education Department are able to take out up to $200,000 in federal student loans. Those pursuing fields excluded from the designation — such as education — are capped at $100,000.
- The lawsuit follows a June order from a federal judge who temporarily blocked the department's professional degree definition. Because of the court order, the Education Department has expanded the list of professional degree programs to include nursing, physical therapy, athletic training and occupational therapy — though education graduate programs remain excluded as of July 10.
Dive Insight:
The unions’ lawsuit alleges the department’s professional degree definition “will make it more difficult and less attractive for students to enter the nursing and teaching profession.”
The complaint said that AFT in particular will be harmed as a result of this regulation, because it will exacerbate teacher shortages, which will lead to fewer potential AFT members in the future.
The lawsuit asked the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia to vacate and postpone the effective date of the Education Department’s Reimagining and Improving Student Education rule, which includes the professional degree definition. The other union plaintiffs in the case include the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, National Nurses United and AFL-CIO.
The union coalition alleged that the new rule’s professional degree definition was unlawfully narrowed and consequently conflicted with Congress’ One Big Beautiful Bill Act and the Higher Education Act.
In a Tuesday statement, AFT President Randi Weingarten said that the court needs to stop the Trump administration’s “unlawful attack on college affordability.”
“One of the most cynical, cruel components of the Trump tax bill was the cuts to the higher education student loan program,” Weingarten said. “Now the effect is clear: By ‘de-professionalizing’ nursing, architecture, social work, teaching and countless other careers, the Trump administration is eviscerating education access for poor and working-class students and their families and dismantling pathways to the middle class.”
When the Education Department omitted graduate education programs from the definition of a professional degree, the agency said in its final rule that advanced education degrees aren’t required to enter a specific profession or obtain licensure, and, as a result, don’t meet the test to be considered professional degrees.
The exclusion of education from the definition has stirred up concerns among K-12 advocates that the change will make it more difficult for schools to recruit and retain administrators, teachers and counselors.
The Education Department remains steadfast in its defense of the new regulation.
In a Wednesday statement emailed to K-12 Dive, Ellen Keast, the Education Department’s press secretary for higher education, said that the agency “is confident in its interpretation of the law” and will “put students and families — not institutions, unions, or special interests — first and make higher education more affordable.“
“This latest lawsuit, coupled with the ones that came before it, makes one thing clear: nearly every program believes it should be entitled to the higher federal loan limits. For nearly two decades, the Department has consistently used a narrow, technical definition of what constitutes a professional degree,” Keast said. “Now that Congress has tied higher loan limits to that longstanding definition, institutions, unions, and trade associations that benefited from the status quo are suddenly trying to rewrite history.”
