A federal judge has prevented the Trump administration from enforcing a new rule that would have reduced federal student loan borrowing limits for graduate students in nursing and several other healthcare-related programs.
On June 24, U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell of the District of Columbia ruled in favor of eight professional organizations, including the American Association of Nurse Practitioners and the PA Education Association, which had challenged the rule before its planned July 1 implementation date.
The Epoch Times has reached out to the Department of Education for comment on the decision.
Skye Perryman, president of Democracy Forward, the legal organization representing the plaintiffs, welcomed the ruling.
She said it would help students pursuing careers in fields such as nursing, public health, education, and marriage and family therapy.
“These are key services that the federal government should be supporting by welcoming those who wish to enter them, not creating barriers to vital support,” she said.
The lawsuit was filed after the Department of Education issued the rule on May 1 to carry out student loan changes enacted by Congress in July 2025 through President Donald Trump’s tax and spending legislation, known as the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act.”
The rule significantly changed federal lending options for graduate students.
It eliminated a loan program that previously allowed students to borrow up to the full cost of attendance and established new borrowing limits under another federal loan program.
Under the revised caps, students enrolled in professional degree programs, such as medicine and law, may borrow up to $50,000 annually and $200,000 overall.
Students in other graduate programs are limited to $20,500 per year and a maximum of $100,000 in total borrowing.
The Department of Education’s rule narrowed the definition of a “professional degree,” restricting it to specific degrees within 11 fields, including law, medicine, dentistry, and theology.
As a result, some healthcare-related graduate programs would have been subject to the lower borrowing limits.
Howell concluded that Congress had already incorporated a long-standing regulatory definition of professional degrees when it passed the 2025 law.
Because Congress adopted that existing definition, she wrote, the department lacked authority to narrow it through regulation.
The judge determined that the rule violated the Administrative Procedure Act and ordered it set aside before it could take effect.
However, Howell declined to block the new loan caps themselves.
She stated that the court could not address the plaintiffs’ broader concern with Congress’s decision to end unlimited federal borrowing for graduate students.
Reuters contributed to this report.
