Over two dozen states and the District of Columbia sued the U.S. Department of Education over its decision to exclude graduate nursing and other fields from the regulatory definition of professional degrees. The challenge centers on how the administration’s rules affect eligibility for higher federal borrowing limits for students in “professional” programs. The suit argues the department imposed requirements not found in statute and would reduce enrollment in healthcare disciplines already facing workforce shortages. State attorneys general including Maryland’s Anthony Brown warned that students would face steeper costs through private loans or exit critical training pathways. The litigation also points to downstream impacts for public colleges’ tuition revenues. On the other side, the Education Department argued the loan caps are intended to push colleges to lower tuition, citing examples of tuition reductions tied to prior loan-limit changes. A separate but related filing also targets the broader graduate loan-limits framework for nursing and healthcare degrees, underscoring that the dispute is now squarely in the federal courts and likely to determine how thousands of prospective graduate students access aid levels starting July 1.