WASHINGTON — U.S. Education Secretary Linda McMahon took heat Thursday over forthcoming changes to the federal student loan system that will impose new borrowing limits for professional and graduate students.  

Lawmakers took specific aim at stricter loan caps set to be established for students pursuing advanced programs that do not fall under the department’s “professional” classification, such as nursing, teaching and social work. 

Members on both sides of the aisle voiced their criticisms during a hearing of the U.S. House Committee on Education and Workforce, where McMahon defended the incoming federal student loan overhaul as well as President Donald Trump’s administration’s separate, ongoing efforts to dismantle the 46-year-old department. 

McMahon emphasized that her department is “not making any kind of a judgment relative to professional degrees” and instead is trying to “bring down the cost” of tuition. 

The secretary pointed to “exorbitant” college costs, noting that “students are burdened with debt.” 

Megabill provision

The imminent shifts to the federal student loan system stem from congressional Republicans’ tax and spending cut megabill that Trump signed into law last year. The department this month published the finalized regulations consistent with the law’s directive. Most provisions will take effect July 1.

The regulations eliminate the Grad PLUS program, which allowed for graduate and professional students to borrow up to the full cost of attendance. 

Graduate student loans will also have a $20,500 annual cap and $100,000 aggregate limit. Professional student loans will have a yearly limit of $50,000 and aggregate cap of $200,000. 

But the programs falling under the department’s “professional” category — and thus eligible for the higher borrowing limit — are limited to pharmacy, dentistry, veterinary medicine, chiropractic, law, medicine, optometry, osteopathic medicine, podiatry, theology and clinical psychology. 

The agency has also clarified, in an agency fact sheet on the finalized regulations, that the “professional” student classifications “do not express a value judgment about the importance of any occupation or field” but instead serve a “loan-administration function.”

‘Tone-deaf’ message

Rep. Jahana Hayes said she was “very concerned” about the department’s “professional” student classifications, noting that these limits “make higher education, especially master’s degree programs, more difficult to afford for nursing, social workers (and) teachers.” 

The Connecticut Democrat clapped back at McMahon’s assertion that the overhaul is about bringing down college costs, saying: “The people who can afford it don’t apply for these programs, the people who can afford it don’t need student loans, the people who come from communities like mine and just want to go back and serve those communities are the ones who are going to be most affected, not the colleges, not the universities, not the board of directors, not the top 1%.”

Rep. Joe Courtney, also a Connecticut Democrat, blasted the regulations’ exclusion of nursing from the “professional” category as “one of the most insulting, tone-deaf messages to 5 million nurses imaginable across the country.” 

Courtney added that the exclusion “will, in fact, raise education costs for critically needed nurses,” and pointed to a petition from the American Nurses Association that received more than 245,000 signatures and urged the department to include nursing programs in its “professional” definition. 

McMahon defended her department’s “professional” classification to the panel, arguing that the agency “looked very, very carefully at the entire nursing profession,” and “95% of the nurses that are in programs do not exceed these caps.” 

The secretary added that “78% of the nurses that are moving for graduate programs do not exceed or come up to these caps.”

Even some Republican members on the panel, whose party championed the “big, beautiful” law that sets forth the student loan overhaul, called into question the new limits.  

Rep. Lisa McClain, chair of the House Republican Conference, asked McMahon “if there’s any way, or you had any thoughts on: Can we explore opening the nurse graduate programs up to expand these caps or lift these caps, because it’s a good return on investment, and we sure do need them?” 

In the GOP’s tax and spending cut law, “one of the things we did was we put the caps on, but we had some carveouts and caveats … and I think this sector of graduate nursing programs was just an unintended consequence, perhaps, that got overlooked,” the Michigan Republican said. 

“And what I’m here to do is really advocate for these programs, because I think they’re extremely important.” 

Legislation to reverse the caps

Bipartisan efforts are underway in Congress to both address the forthcoming loan limits and expand the “professional” student definition. 

Rep. Mike Lawler, a New York Republican, introduced a bill in December that would expand the “professional” definition to also include “nursing, physical therapy, occupational therapy, ministry, social work, audiology, physician assistant, public health, business administration and management, accounting, architecture, secondary education, and special education.” 

Rep. Tim Kennedy of New York brought forth legislation in December with fellow Democratic Reps. Jill Tokuda of Hawaii and Rep. Shomari Figures of Alabama that would ensure graduate and professional students are subject to the same annual and aggregate loan caps. 

Rep. Ritchie Torres, a New York Democrat, introduced a bill that would “restore the full loan limits that were narrowed” under the GOP’s mega tax and spending cut law. 

In the upper chamber, Sen. Angela Alsobrooks, a Maryland Democrat, introduced a companion bill to Torres’ in March, which has drawn more than a dozen co-sponsors.  

Meanwhile, a handful of Democratic lawmakers brought forth a resolution this month that seeks to reverse the forthcoming student loan regulations through the Congressional Review Act, a procedural tool Congress can use to overturn certain actions from federal agencies.

Those lawmakers are: Rep. Suzanne Bonamici and Sen. Jeff Merkley of Oregon, Rep. John Mannion of New York, Rep. Lauren Underwood of Illinois and Alsobrooks. 

WASHINGTON — U.S. senators across the aisle pushed back Tuesday against President Donald Trump’s proposal to eliminate funding for programs serving disadvantaged students.

Education Secretary Linda McMahon defended those and other proposed cuts to her agency outlined in Trump’s fiscal 2027 budget request, which calls for $75.7 billion in new discretionary budget authority for the department that would mark a $3.2 billion, or 4.1%, reduction from fiscal 2026 levels. 

The administration has taken major steps to dismantle the 46-year-old Department of Education as part of the president’s quest to send education “back to the states.” That effort continues despite much of the funding and oversight of schools already occurring at the state and local levels.

“We’ve been clear: Shifting authority back to the states will not come at the expense of the central federal programs (and) support, much of which predate the department itself,” McMahon told lawmakers at the hearing of the U.S. Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies.

The panel shares jurisdiction over Education Department spending with the corresponding subcommittee of the House Appropriations Committee. The president’s budget request is generally considered a starting point for negotiations, but Congress is responsible for deciding federal spending.

Bipartisan support for TRIO 

Republican and Democratic senators took particular aim at the administration’s proposal to eliminate Federal TRIO Programs in fiscal 2027.

The Federal TRIO Programs — funded at $1.19 billion this fiscal year — help support groups including low-income students, first-generation college students, individuals with disabilities and veterans. 

Sen. Susan Collins, chair of the full Senate Appropriations Committee, said she opposes the president’s proposal to eliminate TRIO, noting that these programs have “changed the lives of countless first-generation and low-income students in Maine and across the country.” 

The Maine Republican added that TRIO “enjoys robust support and has made such a difference in the lives of children.” 

Arkansas GOP Sen. John Boozman also emphasized his support for TRIO, noting that in his state, these programs “have been a game-changer in helping low-income and first-generation students not only access higher education, but also succeed once they are there.” 

Sen. Jeff Merkley was the first in his family to go to college and said he comes from a “very blue-collar, frontier, homesteading, timber background.”

The Oregon Democrat said it’s from that perspective he believes that “having conscious programs to help people overcome the cultural chasm that exists between blue-collar kids like myself and that college world that you have very little contact on is enormously valuable in America, and the stats from these programs are pretty damn impressive.” 

The secretary told the panel that while “there are many instances where the TRIO program has been very beneficial … as we look across the country in how to spend these dollars and how to have similar results by maybe not necessarily focusing students towards college degrees, maybe there’s another way for them to have their path to success.” 

McMahon said her agency was in the process of spending “about $2.1 million” for investigating and evaluating the TRIO programs.

In its summary of Trump’s fiscal 2027 budget request, the department said that TRIO “has failed to meet the vast majority of its performance measures, and studies of program effectiveness have shown that it has not increased college enrollment.” 

Dems decry plan to eliminate agency

Meanwhile, McMahon took heat from the leading Democrats on the subcommittee and the broader Senate Appropriations panel over the administration’s ongoing efforts to dismantle the agency. 

Part of those efforts include several interagency agreements between Education and the departments of Labor, Health and Human Services, Interior, State and Treasury that transfer many of Education’s responsibilities to those agencies.

Sen. Tammy Baldwin, ranking member of the subcommittee, said Education “is transferring the vast majority of its programs to other federal departments, agencies with little experience or expertise or capacity to administer them.” 

The Wisconsin Democrat said that instead of “reducing bureaucracy” — a major goal of the administration across the federal government and the department in particular — the transfers are creating “another layer of it.”

She added that “where states previously primarily dealt with the Department of Education, they will now have to deal with multiple federal agencies.” 

Sen. Patty Murray of Washington state, the top Democrat on the full Appropriations Committee, pressed McMahon on the status of the administration mulling the transfer of special education services out of the Education Department amid its dismantling efforts. 

The possible move to transfer programs out of the department’s Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services has stoked widespread concern from disability advocates.

McMahon said her department was “still evaluating where those programs would best be located, and we have not made that determination yet.” 

“I can assure you that the intent of this administration is not to put these students at risk in any way whatsoever,” McMahon said. 

But Murray was not satisfied with the secretary’s response, saying she is “deeply concerned that your answer sounds like you’re still moving ahead — let’s make it clear that will break the law, and it will make it a lot harder for these students with disabilities to get the education and understanding that their country will stand behind them with that.”