The U.S. Department of Education recently convened the Reimagining and Improving Student Education (RISE) Committee to reach consensus on federal loan caps and to determine how degrees would be categorized.

Loan caps were identified based on which categories fall under the term “professional” or “nonprofessional”.  The RISE Committee proposed definition of “professional” excluded Advanced Practice Providers (Nurse Practitioners, Clinical Nurse Specialists, Nurse Anesthetists, Doctor of Nursing Practice, PhD in nursing and Physician Assistants).  As critical care team members, we recognize how essential each of these providers is to delivering 24/7 high-quality, complex neurologic critical care, and strongly disagree with this designation.

The impact of the current recommendations is that degrees listed as “professional” are eligible for loan caps of $50,000 annually and $200,000 total, while “nonprofessional” defined programs will receive lower caps of $20,500 annually and $100,000 total. This decision will make it more difficult for more than 5 million nurses and 189,000 physician assistants within the United States to join the healthcare workforce. While this decision is US-centric, it has worldwide implications for similar practices should they be adopted globally. 

As an international, multidisciplinary society, NCS recognizes the pivotal role that nurses and physician assistants play in providing high-quality care.  Amid an already existing critical care workforce crisis in the United States and worldwide, it is imperative that nurses seeking advanced degrees and physician assistants be fully supported by legislation to enable entry into the field that sorely needs them.

As the NCS leadership, we wanted you to know that we are partnering with key critical care and neurology societal stakeholders to strategize and globally advocate to lawmakers the need to correct this erroneous and damaging labeling. 

This month, a public comment period will occur; watch for future communication from NCS on when this opportunity to amplify your voice becomes available.  Individual communication to your state and national law representatives is another form of advocacy.  For your convenience, please use this link to view a list of state senators and representatives.

Should you be interested in learning more, please visit this link to read this letter from 140 lawmakers further describing the proposal. 

Sincerely,

NCS Officers