Democratic-led states sue to block student loan caps by Trump administration

New rules will limit student loans for nursing degrees to $20,500 a year with a total of $100,000. Photograph: Boy_Anupong/Getty Images View image in fullscreen New rules will limit student loans for nursing degrees to $20,500 a year with a total of $100,000. Photograph: Boy_Anupong/Getty Images Democratic-led states sue to block student loan caps by Trump administration White House says caps will lower tuition costs, but critics say they will exacerbate the country’s nursing shortage Sign up for the Breaking News US newsletter email While the Trump administration has argued that new restrictions on the size of federal student loans will lower tuition costs, public health officials and Democrats say the measures will exacerbate the country’s serious nursing shortage. As such, a group of 24 Democratic-led states and the District of Columbia recently sued the federal government seeking to block the new rule, which is set to take effect on 1 July. If that happens, opponents say, it will not only fail to reduce tuition but also reduce the number of people who pursue careers in medicine, which will particularly hurt rural areas that already have difficulty finding health providers. A college degree once ensured prosperity – but gen Z is finding ‘just not much out there’ Read more “Capping federal loans without capping tuition is like putting less gas in the tank of a car and still wanting to go the same distance,” said Jennifer Zhang, a policy, research and data analyst at Protect Borrowers, a consumer advocacy group. The new parameters , which Congress approved as part of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, will limit people pursuing graduate degrees termed “professional”, such as medicine, dentistry and law, to borrowing $50,000 per year, with a maximum of $200,000. Other graduate students, including those seeking to become nurses, physical therapists and nurse anesthetists, will be limited to $20,500 per year and a total of $100,000. The Trump administration claims that the restrictions will stop graduate schools from continually increasing tuition costs and make education more affordable. Since 2000, the average cost of earning a graduate degree has more than tripled, according to a 2024 report from Georgetown University . “For the last two decades, graduate students have been able to borrow up to the full cost of attendance, enabling colleges and universities to raise tuition and fees with few constraints while shifting the financial burden on to students,” the US Department of Education stated . That cost can also lead to significant debt. Among advanced practice nurses, such as nurse practitioners and nurse anesthetists, who took out loans, more than a quarter had balances that exceeded the $100,000 limit, according to a recent study in the Health Affairs Scholar journal. “If institutions expanded cost and spending in proportion to the availability of credit, it seems very reasonable to think that they could also reduce costs as those limits go dow