Letters: Don’t undermine nursing by limiting graduate loan access |
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Nurses — the largest and most trusted profession in the country — are the core of our healthcare system. We were applauded across New York during the COVID-19 pandemic and recognized as “essential” workers. Now that same profession is being undermined by a U.S. Department of Education proposal that would remove nursing from its list of recognized “professional degree” programs.
As a nurse educator at a large university, I teach a diverse group of students, many of whom rely on federal graduate loans to become nurses, nurse practitioners or nurse educators. Removing nursing from the Department of Education’s professional degree list is misguided and would block students from accessing higher federal loan limits — up to $50,000 per year, or $200,000 over a lifetime — that make advanced nursing education attainable. This change would especially affect students from underserved communities, the very communities they hope to return to and serve.
The proposed rule would worsen shortages of nurse practitioners and behavioral health and primary care providers across New York, particularly in rural and underserved settings. It would also threaten the already limited pipeline of nursing faculty at a time when schools are struggling to recruit instructors needed to prepare the next generation of nurses.
Limiting federal loan access by excluding nursing from “professional degree” status should be opposed by anyone who values the evidence-based care that licensed nurses provide and who understands the need for a diverse, well-trained healthcare workforce. Nurses and patients are urging the Department of Education to withdraw this ill-advised proposal and recognize nursing as a professional degree field under the One Big Beautiful Bill Act.
The writer is an Associate Professor with Mercy University.
Published Dec. 15, 2025
I purchased my Pine Hills home just as the College of Saint Rose bankruptcy became public. The incisive editorial, “The high-speed sale of Saint Rose” (Nov. 28), which urged that “the Pine Hills Land Authority board needs to remember that it was created to serve the interests of the people of Albany County, not the county executive's artificial timeline of announcing potential sales of $35 million in Saint Rose real estate by February,” was most welcome — though it comes too late to effectively challenge County Executive Dan McCoy’s most egregious overreach in this process.
The original misstep in the county-driven Reimagine Saint Rose effort came when McCoy effectively requisitioned three of the campus’s most valuable properties — the Hearst Center for Communications and Interactive Media, the Huether School of Business, and the administration building — with little public explanation. Along with the neighboring Massry Center for the Arts, these could have served as a creative hub for the wider community.
McCoy appeared to recognize the administration building’s potential as a digital production hub, but when he finally explained why he wanted it, his rationale was simply to have a better perch to oversee campus redevelopment.
His moves further violate the Reimagine pledge to seek the “highest and best use” of each property.
Even more damaging — if less measurable — is the loss of what a Massry-Hearst cluster could have nurtured in local talent, especially for the Capital Region’s growing creative industries.
The land authority could still mitigate the harm by extending the county’s temporary use of these properties, rather than approving sales arbitrarily priced well below their assessed value.
Published Dec. 15, 2025
As a 1972 alumnus of the College of Saint Rose, and with all respect, I have a differing opinion from the recent editorial and column published by the Times Union (