Are Women More Affected By Trump Admin's 'Profe...

By Alice Gibbs

Senior Life and Trends Reporter

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Women are voicing concerns online that the Trump administration’s move to narrow which degrees qualify as "professional" could disproportionately constrain access to female-dominated professions—particularly in health care, education and social services.

Under new guidance from the Department of Education, degrees in nursing, physician assistant studies, physical therapy, audiology, architecture, accounting, teaching and social work will not be considered "professional" degrees, despite preparing students for licensed or advanced professional practice.

The move will dictate federal student-loan limits under the administration’s upcoming "One Big Beautiful Bill" repayment structure, which offers higher annual loan caps for students in "professional" programs.

Newsweek has emailed the Department of Education for comment on this story. It previously rejected criticism leveled at the changes, insisting the list relied on long-standing regulatory language dating back to 1965 and that proposed changes are intended to curb unlimited borrowing.

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Why It Matters

The cost of earning a college degree is rising—over the last 30 years the average tuition for both public and private colleges has doubled after adjusting for inflation, according to a report by NPR.

As degrees that are not deemed "professional" will have lower loans caps, students in these programs will face steeper financing hurdles—and could be deterred from pursuing high-demand careers.

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Critics of the policy argue it effectively places higher financial burdens on some of the most essential but often lower-paid professions, many of which are staffed largely by women.

What to Know

The rules would set different borrowing limits for "professional" and "non-professional" programs. Graduate students would be capped at $20,500 a year and $100,000 total, while students in designated professional programs could borrow up to $50,000 a year and $200,000 total.

Using the Bureau of Labor Statistics' (BLS) Labor Force Statistics from the Current Population Survey for 2024, Newsweek analyzed how many women work in fields that will be excluded from the list of "professional" degrees.

Broadly, the data shows that millions of women work in fields that will no longer be treated as "professional" for loan-limit purposes.

Nursing is the most female-dominated of all the affected fields. The American Nurses Association has warned that excluding nursing programs may limit access to advanced practice degrees and worsen existing shortages.

Alongside nursing, teaching is also one of the most female-dominated major professions in the U.S. (73 percent female).

Similarly, physician assistants (73 percent), physical therapists (64 percent), accountants and auditors (57 percent) and social workers (83 percent) are all roles primarily taken on by female workers, according to the BLS data.

The only affected field area not shown to be predominantly occupied by females was architecture.

Audiology programs are widely recognized as majority-female, although sex-breakdown data was not available for this group. In 2022, the BLS reported that health care occupations with particularly high concentrations of women included speech-language pathologists (98 percent), dental hygienists (96 percent), dental assistants (94 percent), and nursing assistants (90 percent).

What People Are Saying

TikToker @annacamillec posted a video about the change that has gained more than 3.2 million views, in which she said: "This makes these degrees financially unattainable for a lot of students most of which are women. This weakens the future female workforce pipeline."

@miafarrowthatqueen wrote on social media platform Threads: "It’s almost like they’re saying women have no value as they rip away our roles and authority."

Threads user @cowcerdar likened the move to the plot of a Margaret Atwood novel: "In The Handmaid’s Tale, women are deliberately stripped of access to professions like nursing and teaching. The regime of Gilead is built on rigid gender roles and the suppression of female autonomy."

Department of Education press secretary for higher education Ellen Keast previously told Newsweek: "This is fake news at its finest. The Department has had a consistent definition of what constitutes a professional degree for decades and the consensus-based language aligns with this historical precedent.

"The committee, which included institutions of higher education, agreed on the definition that we will put forward in a proposed rule. We’re not surprised that some institutions are crying wolf over regulations that never existed because their unlimited tuition ride on the taxpayer dime is over."