Excluding Nursing from Professional Degree Classification Jeopardizes Wyoming’s Rural Health Transformation and Nursing Pipeline Efforts

The Wyoming Nurses Association (WNA) expresses profound concern regarding the U.S. Department of Education’s forthcoming federal loan eligibility rules, which exclude nursing from the definition of "professional degree" programs. This policy threatens to severely limit access to crucial federal funding for graduate nursing education, directly undermining coordinated efforts to strengthen and expand the nursing workforce in Wyoming.

“Nurses are the backbone of Wyoming’s healthcare system, serving as essential primary care providers, educators, and leaders, particularly in our rural and frontier communities,” said Jennfier Rasp-Vaughn, MBA/MSN, BS, RN, RCIS, CNML, LBC, WNA President. “At a time when Wyoming faces a historic nurse shortage and rising demands for local care, limiting our nurses’ ability to afford advanced education is deeply counterproductive to our state’s goals.”

Direct Negative Impact on Wyoming’s Health Strategy

This federal exclusion directly conflicts with the strategic goals of the Wyoming Department of Health (WDH) Rural Health Transformation Program (RHTP). The WDH has explicitly prioritized building up the state's healthcare workforce and expanding educational opportunities for nurses to smooth career pathways, aiming to attract and retain high-skilled providers.

• Undermining the Nursing Pipeline: The new federal rules threaten to cap annual graduate student borrowing limits, potentially forcing students to rely on higher-interest private loans. This financial barrier makes pursuing degrees necessary for Advanced Practice Registered Nurses (APRNs), educators, and leaders—significantly more challenging.
• Jeopardizing Rural Access: In many of Wyoming’s most underserved and rural areas, APRNs (like Nurse Practitioners and Certified Registered Nurse Anesthetists) are the primary, and often only, source of essential, high-quality care. By making graduate education harder to finance, this rule will slow the production of these critical providers, directly thwarting the WDH’s objectives to increase access to basic medical care and retain staff in small rural hospitals.

 “The investments Wyoming is making through the Rural Health Transformation Funds are intended to create a sustainable, long-term nursing pipeline from entry-level roles to advanced practice,” Kara Beech, BSBA, SHRM-CP, CTA, WNA Executive Director added. “If the Department of Education’s rules make it financially prohibitive for our nurses to advance their education, that pipeline breaks, and our rural communities are the ones who pay the highest price. We cannot afford to have a federal policy actively sabotage our state’s efforts to improve local healthcare access.”

WNA Call to Action

The WNA urges the Department of Education to acknowledge the rigor and essential role of nursing education by immediately revising the “professional degree” definition to explicitly include all post-baccalaureate nursing pathways.

Ensuring robust and affordable financial support for advanced nursing education is not just an academic concern—it is essential to the future of safe, quality care delivery and the success of Wyoming’s entire rural health transformation strategy.  For more information, visit the American Nurses Association Website here https://rnaction.org/sitepages/PSLC.aspx.

Stand up for nurses’ education and workforce—sign our petition. https://ana.quorum.us/campaign/professionaldegreepetition/