Beginning in 2026, new caps for federal student loans will go into effect. Many degrees will have a cap of $100,000 while other high-cost programs like medicine, law, and dentistry will be subject to a $200,000 cap. That has many educators sounding the alarm.
Since 2017, Dr. Alexa Doig has been working at New Mexico State University helping future nurses learn the skills they need for the hospital. As part of this goal, NMSU unveiled a brand-new extension of their simulation lab that allows students to experience what it is like to work in an operation room as well as updated their old sim labs.
“What this facility provides is a very realistic healthcare setting. The School of Nursing Skills and Simulation Lab is set up like a hospital so we have hospital beds, equipment that you might find in the healthcare setting, and we have mannequins that look like humans,” Dr. Doig said.
Dr. Doig says that environments like this are necessary to help train new nurses, something that is in very high demand in the state and country.
“We still continue to have a nursing shortage in this country and obviously our graduates going into the field are helping to fix that issue, however nurses will face shortages when they are working in the hospital which means that they may have to take care of more patients than normal,” Dr. Doig said.
However, recent announcements of caps to federal student loans have Dr. Doig worried. She says that these caps could make it much harder for students to get higher level nursing degrees like nurse anesthesiologist programs. The costs to attend these programs are high and students are regularly not allowed to work while they go to school since the education is so rigorous. Non-professional degrees like this will have a cap of $100,000.
“In addition to borrowing for tuition and textbooks and other expenses, these nurse anesthesia students have to borrow money to live. They have to pay rent, their mortgage, their health insurance, food, and other necessities so it is really critical that they have access to these loans,” Dr. Doig said.
However, The Department of Education argues that this will help students. According to their website, they say that the price of higher education has gone up because of the unlimited cap on federal student loans causing schools to charge whatever they want. They say that adding a cap will help reign in prices.
The Department of Education also says that defining nursing degrees as "non-professional degrees” is not a reflection on the nursing profession but rather an internal definition.
In response to the caps, The American Association of Colleges of Nursing criticized the decision and said that “should the proposal be finalized, the impact on our already-challenged nursing workforce would be devastating.”
Cabinet Secretary for the New Mexico Higher Education Department Stephanie Rodriguez says that the state is aware of the caps and is looking into how to support students.
“This proposal is incredibly concerning especially in a state where we have a nursing vacancy of 6000, especially in a state where we have one social worker for 400 students in the public school system so why on earth would we create a system that discourages people from getting graduate degrees in these fields,” Rodriguez said.
New Mexico already offers in-state residents free tuition for undergraduate degrees thanks to the lottery and opportunity scholarships. One way that the Higher Education Department is looking to fill the void is asking the state for more money for loan repayment programs.
“We have two asks in there. $25 million for health professionals so that nurses, physicians, dentists, clinical social workers who are working in the hospitals, we will go ahead and take on that debt so long as when we are done paying it off you commit to staying in New Mexico for three years,” Rodriguez said.
The second ask is a similar program for teachers in high need areas which according to Rodriguez covers much of the state.
The proposed caps are set to go into effect in July.
