Federal student loan changes could threaten the EP allied workforce

HRS and Heart Rhythm Advocates (HRA) are monitoring a proposed Department of Education reinterpretation of the federal “professional degree” designation under the One Big Beautiful Bill (OBBBA) regulations that could significantly affect the EP care workforce. The proposal would exclude many nursing graduate programs - particularly advanced practice and specialty tracks - from eligibility for higher federal student loan limits historically available to other clinical professional degrees.

 

The revised definition relies on rigid doctoral-degree requirements, program length thresholds, and outdated degree classifications that fail to reflect modern clinical education pathways. As a result, critical EP allied professionals, including advanced practice nurses (NPs, CNSs, CRNAs, CNMs), Physician Associates, and genetic counselors, could face steeply reduced access to federal loan support despite completing rigorous, licensure-based training programs essential to patient care.

 

Limiting loan eligibility risks creating significant financial barriers to advanced training and could further strain an already challenged workforce. EP laboratories depend heavily on these clinicians for procedures, device management, inherited arrhythmia care, and longitudinal patient management. Reduced access to graduate education would exacerbate existing staffing shortages, delay patient care, and constrain procedural capacity at a time of rising arrhythmia prevalence and growing demand for complex EP services.

 

HRA is evaluating opportunities to engage the Department of Education to ensure workforce impacts are fully considered and to advocate for policies that protect access to advanced clinical training while maintaining long-term fiscal responsibility.