As someone who has spent many years as a hospital administrator, I know how essential nurses are to every part of our health care system. I am also grateful for the federal programs that supported my own graduate education and allowed me to enter the field of health care leadership. That support mattered, and today’s nursing students deserve the same chance. That is why the U.S. Department of Education’s proposed rule redefining “professional degree programs” is so troubling. Under this new definition, nursing, including advanced practice nursing, is excluded.

This change is far more than a bureaucratic adjustment. It is a direct blow to the health care workforce. At a time when hospitals across the country are struggling to fill shifts and maintain vital services, this rule would remove nursing students’ access to the higher federal loan limits available to fields like medicine, dentistry and even law. It creates new financial barriers for a profession already stretched thin. If the goal were to discourage people from entering nursing, this decision would accomplish it.

Here in Maine, the consequences are unmistakable. Our Lewiston hospitals, St. Mary’s Regional Medical Center and Central Maine Medical Center, along with our home health agencies, nursing homes and neighboring rural hospitals, depend on all nurses, from bedside RNs to advanced practice nurses. Limiting access to nursing education harms every hospital, every clinic and every patient who relies on them.

I urge readers to ask our congressional delegation to step in immediately and reverse this short-sighted rule.

Jim Cassidy, M.P.H.
Turner