RCN condemns US proposal to exclude nursing as ‘professional’ degree
The Royal College of Nursing (RCN) has condemned a US plan to exclude nursing from its list of ‘professional’ graduate degrees, describing it as an attack that ‘degrades and devalues’ the profession.
The US government, under the administration of President Donald Trump, has proposed the move as part of a review of education programmes.
The change would restrict access to student loans, capping graduate nursing students at $100,000 in federal loans compared with $200,000 for designated professional degrees such as medicine, dentistry and law.
Professor Nicola Ranger, RCN general secretary and chief executive, said: ‘I worked as a nurse in the US for almost five years and know how valued the profession is.
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‘We are a global profession and an attack on one is an attack on all. This will not go unnoticed as we stand side-by-side in solidarity with our colleagues in the USA.’
Professor Ranger added: ‘Nursing is a highly skilled, degree-educated profession that is critical to patient safety and central to protecting public health. There can be little doubt this is down to nursing being a female-dominated profession.
‘At a time when there is a global shortage of nurses we expect our leaders to be doing everything possible to encourage more into the profession rather than treating them with contempt.’
The American Nurses Association (ANA) said more than 200,000 nurses and patients have signed a petition calling on the US Department of Education to modify the policy.
Dr Jennifer Mensik Kennedy, ANA president, warned that Americans should be ‘very concerned’ about the impact of the proposal on patient care.
The ANA warned the move would worsen a faculty crisis, with nursing schools reporting more than 2,100 full-time faculty vacancies in 2022. These vacancies resulted in more than 80,000 qualified student applications being turned away, according to the ANA.
‘Without adequate faculty, we simply cannot educate the nurses America needs, let alone expand the advanced practice workforce that healthcare requires,’ said Dr Mensik Kennedy.
‘Restricting graduate nursing students’ access to federal loans would only deepen this crisis by discouraging nurses from pursuing the advanced degrees required to teach the next generation.’
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The International Council of Nurses (ICN) also condemned the US proposal, saying it would ‘severely restrict’ loan and loan-forgiveness options available to graduate and advanced practice nursing students, with ‘significant negative implications’ for both the nursing workforce and patients’ access to healthcare.
José Luis Cabos Serrano, ICN president, said: ‘Graduate-level preparation is what enables advanced practice nurses, nurse practitioners, certified registered nurse anaesthetists, clinical nurse specialists and certified nurse midwives to provide high-quality care – and they are often the only accessible provider in underserved regions.
‘The International Council of Nurses stands with the ANA, with every nurse whose future relies on fair access to graduate education, and with all the communities worldwide whose health depends on a strong pipeline of nurses and advanced practice nurses.’
The US Department of Education insisted that the definition of a professional degree was ‘an internal definition’ used by the department to distinguish among programmes that qualify for higher loan limits, not a ‘value judgement’ about the importance of programmes.
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It said its data indicated that 95% of nursing students borrow below the annual loan limit and therefore were not affected by the proposed caps.
The department added that placing a cap on loans would push graduate nursing programmes to reduce their programme costs, ensuring that nurses would not be ‘saddled with unmanageable student loan debt’.
However, the ANA warned that a ‘Myth vs. Fact’ document from the US government on the move ‘minimised the potential adverse impact’.
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