Deep Dive: A Bureaucratic Change with Catastrophic Consequences

Redefining “professional degrees” risks collapsing the workforce our schools, clinics, and communities rely on.

For something with the potential to reshape entire professions, the federal government’s new definition of a “professional degree” arrived with remarkably little fanfare. Instead, there was a quiet update from the RISE Committee—part of the One Big Beautiful Bill—that rewrites who counts as a professional for the purposes of federal student loans.

On pap…