With nursing among a number of graduate degree programs no longer deemed “professional” by the federal government, placing hard caps and constraints on students’ borrowing ability, State Senator Martha Marx (D-New London) joined Congressman Joe Courtney and nursing professionals from across Eastern Connecticut today at CT State Three Rivers to decry the new program, which could financially harm more than one in every five nursing graduate students.

Marx and Courtney were joined by Mary Ellen Jukowski, campus president of CT State Three Rivers and Quinebaug Valley; John Brady, vice president of AFT CT; Kimberly Sandor, executive director of the Connecticut Nurses’ Association; Terri Willians, president of the Connecticut Association of Nurse Anesthesiology; and Victoria Vaughan Dickson, dean of the University of Connecticut’s Elisabeth Deluca School of Nursing.

As of July 1, under the federal budget passed by Republican lawmakers in the summer of 2025, nursing will be among teaching and social work as fields no longer considered “professional” graduate degrees. That will halve the funds available to students pursuing these degrees, which will have impacts ranging from pushing them toward private student loans to ending their educations whatsoever.

The shift will effectively raise education costs at a moment when America already faces health care worker shortages, raising alarm about the short- and long-term consequences of the shift.

In response, Connecticut lawmakers including Sen. Marx passed legislation this year creating a graduate student loan program through the Connecticut Higher Education Supplemental Loan Authority, giving students new opportunities to obtain affordable loans and continue their studies.

A nurse with 40 years of experience, Sen. Marx said her field has worked hard to ensure it is seen and accepted as a profession, only for the Trump administration to take direct aim at them in response.
“These are really important people who play strong roles in our public health system,” said Sen. Marx. “Our public health system already has weaknesses, and because of this, that will get worse. I don’t think the Trump administration really understands affordability and what it’s like to be a real person. It’s great that this year in Hartford, we passed the Connecticut Supplemental Graduate Student Loan Program, which was introduced in response to these cuts. We need to keep fighting back.”

“This is a national problem, and sometimes it’s described as a nursing shortage,” said Courtney. “A lot of groups involved are calling it a shortage crisis, because the impact of not having enough people to fill critical conditions falls onto patients in terms of not getting a consistent level of care. Under current Department of Education rules recently passed under the federal budget, people are going to get pushed out of federal loan programs that have been in existence since the 1960s and pushed into the private market, which will also make some people ineligible for loan assistance. If we’re serious as a country in terms of addressing the nursing shortage, we should be knocking down barriers, not creating new barriers.”

“The collective voices of nurses and other health care professionals has enabled us to make great progress over the last couple of years in Connecticut, especially around workplace safety and violence and safe staffing. What the Trump administration has done in capping student loans for nurses works against that effort,” said Brady. “The changes that have occurred and yet to occur from Medicaid defunding will hurt the higher healthcare system. Instead of receiving support from the Trump administration, that administration is working against us. This must stop.”

“Nurses shape and have shaped health care, patient safety and quality outcomes,” said Sandor. “When nurses have a higher education level, patient outcomes improve. Nurses bring independent clinical judgment, patient advocacy, education, assessment and care coordination to every encounter they do. Under these changes, access to loans for nurses is already being felt on the front lines, where we know people are questioning whether or not they can become nurses. We’re in the midst of a nursing shortage. While Connecticut is stepping up, this is happening across the country. We are not going away; we will continue advocating for our profession, our workforce and the patients and communities who depend on us every day.”