Is Nursing a Professional Degree? Nurse Practitioner Groups Ask a Court to Settle It

Is nursing a professional degree? For federal student loans, an MSN or DNP is treated as one right now, but only because a federal judge in Washington paused part of the Education Department’s rule in June. On October 2, 2026, the American Association of Nurse Practitioners and five other groups asked the same court to strike that rule for good, and on November 4 the court ruled on a motion to change the briefing schedule. If you’re starting or paying for an FNP program, the outcome, along with any change ED makes to its own list, decides whether you can borrow $50,000 a year or $20,500.

Where the professional degree case stands

The case is American Association of Nurse Practitioners v. McMahon, filed May 21, 2026 in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. The court consolidated it with a suit by the PA Education Association and the American Academy of Physician Associates. The court’s opinion describes the plaintiffs as associations “in the fields of advanced practice nursing, therapy, public health, and education.” The nursing three are AANP, the National Association of Pediatric Nurse Practitioners and the American Association of Colleges of Nursing.

On June 24, Judge Beryl A. Howell set aside and stayed the first part of ED’s definition of a professional degree, plus a line in the rule’s preamble saying a professional degree can’t lead to work that “ordinarily must be supervised by a licensed professional in a different occupation.” In her opinion, she found the plaintiffs “likely to succeed on their APA claim that the Rule’s definition of ‘professional degree’ is contrary to law.” She refused to go further. The order didn’t block the loan caps themselves, so ED still decides program by program which degrees get the higher limit.

That was preliminary relief. The fight now is over the final answer. In an amended complaint filed in August, the nursing groups asked the court to vacate the definition and ED’s guidance, and to order the Department to treat “certain degrees in nursing” as professional degrees. They filed for summary judgment on October 2, and the physician assistant groups filed the day before. Under the court’s July schedule, ED’s cross-motion was due November 6, with replies running to December 4. The docket shows a motion to modify that schedule on November 2, an order on that motion November 4 and new deadlines set November 6. The new dates aren’t in the public docket text yet.

Key dates in the professional degree fight

What an FNP student can borrow in 2026-27

Your limit depends on which credential you’re enrolled in and when you first borrowed for it. These are Direct Unsubsidized Loan limits, the only federal loan left for graduate study now that Grad PLUS is closed to new borrowers:

Every borrower also sits under a $257,500 lifetime cap on federal student loans, and anything you already owe from an earlier graduate program counts toward the totals. If you study part time, your annual amount is reduced, because the rule “reduces annual loan amounts for students enrolled less than full-time.” Your school can also set a lower figure than the law allows, so the number that matters is the one on your aid offer.

The $50,000 line is the one that can move. ED’s own announcement says its interim designations “may change as litigation in the cases proceeds,” and that it’s “confident that the professional degree definition in the RISE Final Rule is lawful and will continue to defend it.”

Why the Education Department left nursing off the list

The 2025 budget law gave professional students higher limits than graduate students but didn’t define the term, so ED wrote a definition. Its list started from the degrees already named in federal regulations: medicine, dentistry, pharmacy, law and a handful of others. Nursing groups asked for MSN, DNP and nursing PhD programs to be added. The final rule answered plainly: “The Department declines to include nursing programs at the four-digit CIP code series 51.38 in the list of professional degrees.”

The reasoning turned on supervision. ED’s preamble excluded degrees leading to jobs that must be supervised by a licensed professional in a different occupation, and it pointed at nurse practitioners directly: “In a significant proportion of States, nurse practitioners, certified nurse midwives, and clinical nursing specialists, are subject to career-long supervision or are otherwise required to enter into formal relationships with physicians.” Whether that describes your state depends on its practice authority law, which varies a lot. The supervision line is also exactly what the court stayed in June.

So the stay didn’t rewrite the list. It removed the parts of the definition that kept nursing off it, and ED then published its interim list, which it calls “interim administrative designations” provided “solely to facilitate implementation of the Courts’ order.” That list names the MSN and the DNP, and no other nursing credential.

Post-master’s certificates stay at the lower limit

If you already hold a nurse practitioner license in another population and you’re adding family practice through a post-master’s FNP certificate, none of this case helps you as it stands. The final rule says “regardless of the details of the specific program, students enrolled in a graduate certificate program are not eligible for the higher professional student loan limits.” The stay didn’t touch that sentence, and ED’s interim list names degrees, not certificates.

The nursing PhD is in a similar spot. ED’s interim list names the MSN and the DNP. The amended complaint says the guidance “continues to exclude other doctoral nursing programs, including Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.) in Nursing.” If you’re weighing a research doctorate after your FNP, plan on the graduate limit unless that changes.

For an MSN or DNP, the credential has to match. ED’s list covers “any program within the same four-digit CIP code ... provided it awards the same credential,” and the final rule calls nursing “the four-digit CIP code series 51.38.” So a family nurse practitioner program filed anywhere in CIP 51.38 qualifies, as long as the school awards an MSN or DNP. A school that files its FNP track under a different credential name should be able to tell you which side of that line you’re on.

If you were already enrolled before July 1, 2026

Students who were mid-program when the rules changed kept the old limits for a while, including access to Grad PLUS. The rule’s interim exception applies if you were enrolled in your program as of June 30, 2026 and a Direct Loan was made for that program before July 1, 2026.

The exception runs for your “expected time to credential,” which the rule sets as the lesser of three academic years or the part of your program you haven’t finished yet. A part-time MSN student with four years left gets three under the old rules and then moves to the new limits for the last stretch.

Transferring ends it. “If a student transfers to a different institution, even in the same program of study, the Department would consider that to be a new program of study,” the rule says, and a new program means the new limits. If you’re thinking of moving to a cheaper FNP program mid-degree, price the switch with the new limits, not the old ones.

What the two limits cover at FNP schools

The gap between $20,500 and $50,000 matters most at private schools. The table compares each sector’s median annual graduate tuition and fees, from IPEDS 2023-24, with the two annual limits. These are institution-wide graduate charges at the schools in our catalog, not the price of any one FNP program, and they leave out rent, books and travel to clinical sites.

At the median private nonprofit school, the graduate limit covers tuition with $16,727 a year still owed, and three in four private nonprofit schools in the catalog charge more than $20,500. The professional limit covers that same median with room to spare. At the median public school, either limit covers in-state tuition. If you’re choosing on price, the most affordable FNP programs are the ones least exposed to how this case ends.

At the 69 schools where FNP students make up at least half of the nursing master’s class, graduates left with a median of $41,145 in federal loans, under the $100,000 graduate total. But the highest school median was $103,657, above it. What an FNP program costs breaks those figures down further.

What this means if you’re studying to be an FNP

Budget for the lower number. If you plan on $20,500 a year and the higher limit holds, you’ve simply borrowed less than you could have. If you plan on $50,000 and nursing drops off ED’s list partway through your program, your later disbursements could shrink while your tuition doesn’t. ED’s guidance doesn’t address students already borrowing at the higher limit, so ask your financial aid office what its plan is before you accept a package that depends on it.

The credential you choose matters more than it did a year ago. During the stay, an MSN or DNP gets the higher limit, while a post-master’s certificate or a nursing PhD doesn’t. Between the two degrees, the limits are the same: a DNP borrower is capped at $50,000 a year, just like an MSN borrower, so the choice between an MSN and a DNP still comes down to years and tuition, and the longer degree means more total debt. Compare MSN FNP programs and DNP FNP programs on tuition before you compare them on prestige.

Don’t count on Congress. The Nursing is a Professional Degree Act was introduced in the House on May 7, 2026 and the Senate on May 19, and both bills have sat in committee since. And ask schools you’re weighing a direct question: if your federal loans stop at $20,500 a year, what does the remaining bill look like, and how have their students been covering it since July?