The Department of Education has taken its penultimate step in finalizing a new rule that will put a limit on how much graduate students can borrow from the government to fund their education. The plan has seen significant public pushback in recent months, and now concerned constituents will get the chance to have their say.

A committee of higher ed experts cautiously signed off on the department’s plans in November. On Thursday, the department’s more thorough formal proposal was published to the Federal Register for comment. (What was published closely mirrors the regulatory text committee members agreed to but adds further explanations.)

Members of the public now have until March 2 to submit their comments. And after that, the only step left is for department officials to review and respond to the comments before they finalize the rule. The policy is supposed to take effect July 1.

“For years, American families have rightfully been concerned about the escalating cost of higher education, the long-term—and often negative—effects of student loan debt, and how their postsecondary education translates into real-world jobs and higher wages,” Under Secretary of Education Nicholas Kent said in a news release. “[The regulation] offers a once-in-a-generation opportunity to lower tuition costs and improve the student loan system to better support borrowers.”

The regulations, written in response to the higher ed section of Congress’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act, end Grad PLUS loans and limit Parent PLUS loans, which allowed postbaccalaureate students and the parents of undergrads to borrow up to the full cost of attendance. They also eliminate multiple loan-repayment options for borrowers.

But the most contentious aspect of the regulation is the new limit on loans for students in graduate and professional programs, which could force universities to rethink their approach to graduate education and lead students to rely more on private loans. Congress capped federal loans for students in programs that qualify as professional at up to $50,000 per year and $200,000 total. Graduate students in nonprofessional programs will only be able to borrow up to $20,500 per year, to a total of $100,000. But it was up to the department and the rule-making committee to decide which degree programs fell into which category.

In the end, the department decided to automatically designate 11 programs as professional. That list mostly mirrors an existing statutory definition and attached list of examples, except for the addition of clinical psychology. The negotiating committee unanimously agreed to this plan, though some members said they only did so to protect other compromises in the proposal.

Committee members and other advocates have argued that omitting other degrees needed for high-demand health-care roles from the professional category could lead to critical provider shortages.

Various trade groups and professional associations—particularly the American Nurses Association and the American Association of Colleges of Nursing—have spread the word about the changes in recent months. They wanted to see the master’s and doctoral degrees needed to be a nurse practitioner or anesthetist included and pushed back on the proposal in statements, social media campaigns, petitions and letters to Congress.

In the wake of pushback from associations, some individuals took to social media to voice their opposition to the rule. But much of that online commentary focused on the general connotation of being considered professional rather than the technicality of the term. They often cast the Trump administration’s move as a form of disrespect or a threat to licensure rather than a matter of loan access. As a result, the Trump administration put out a public statement to “set the record straight” and explain that the term “professional student” is only used to distinguish programs that have access to the higher amount of federal loans.

In a summary of the regulation, the department once again sought to make clear what it meant by “professional.”

“The designation, or lack thereof, of a program as ‘professional’ does not reflect a value judgment by the Department regarding whether a borrower graduating from the program is considered a ‘professional,’” the summary reads.

And the fight over which programs are considered professional likely won’t end with this rule. Democrats in the House have already proposed legislation to change the law, and a bipartisan group of lawmakers from both chambers has urged ED to rethink the loan-cap proposal—or at least add nursing to the list of professional programs.

“According to the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission, 57 percent of Medicare beneficiaries received a primary care service from an NP or physician associate, and 66 percent of rural Medicare patients received a primary care service from an NP or PA,” the letter signed by over 140 representatives said. “At a time when our nation is facing a health-care shortage, especially in primary care, now is not the time to cut off the student pipeline to these programs.”