Negotiated Rulemaking: The Biggest Student Loan Takeaways for 2026 So Far

Every few years or so, the party in power of the executive branch launches a negotiated rulemaking session to change regulations surrounding the student loan program. In response to the passage of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBB Act), the Trump administration launched a negotiated rulemaking session to create new regulations governing how student loans will be managed going forward.

The Department of Education has stated that this out-of-cycle rulemaking committee is required by Congress due to the OBBB Act. Usually, rules need to be published by November 30 to take effect the following July.

However, the administration’s view is that what Congress says overrides the normal way of doing things, as the executive branch needs to come up with the nuts-and-bolts rules to implement the OBBB Act by the dates Congress set.

What borrowers need to know is that we should expect a bunch of final rules to drop early in 2026 that will likely be implemented by July 2026.

So far, the biggest controversy under this process has been the definition of a “professional student.”

Why does this matter so much? We’ll explain why, and we’ll also detail some other rules we’re watching out for.

What is a professional student? So far, it’s a narrow definition

Borrowing the definition on the NASFA website from CFR 668.2, a professional student is one of the following (although it says it’s not limited to this list):

Professional degree: A degree that signifies both completion of the academic requirements for beginning practice in a given profession and a level of professional skill beyond that normally required for a bachelor's degree. Professional licensure is also generally required. Examples of a professional degree include but are not limited to: 

• Pharmacy (Pharm.D.) 
• Dentistry (D.D.S. or D.M.D.) 
• Veterinary Medicine (D.V.M.) 
• Chiropractic (D.C. or D.C.M.) 
• Law (L.L.B. or J.D.) 
• Medicine (M.D.) 
• Optometry (O.D.) 
• Osteopathic Medicine (D.O.) 
• Podiatry (D.P.M., D.P., or Pod.D.) 
• Theology (M.Div., or M.H.L.)

The definition of professional student determines loan limits

This list leaves out critical professionals like Nurse Practitioners, Physician Assistants, Physical Therapists, Social Workers and more.

Without this professional student designation, loan limits would be $20,500 per year instead of $50,000. This lower cap would force many students into the private loan market, which is currently not developed enough to support no-cosigner options for students (although that might change in the future).

Department of Education’s defensive response suggests they might modify rules around the edges

The Department of Education issued a press release defending its proposed definitions and calling out that these changes only affect nurses pursuing master’s or doctoral degrees, and thus “95% of nursing students would be unimpacted.”

That said, due to nursing shortages and optics, the path of least resistance would likely be to modify the rules before final publication early next year to include at least nurse practitioners.

BSN degrees are undergraduate degrees and therefore would not be eligible for even the $20,500-per-year loan limits for master’s degrees. Nurses could be hit hard.

The Department of Education says this, though, in their press release:

“The Department of Education has not published a proposed or final rule defining professional student yet. Because the negotiated rulemaking committee unanimously agreed to a proposed definition for “professional student” for increased loan limits, among other things, the Department is required to publish the agreed upon language in its proposed rule. But the Department has not prejudged the rulemaking process and may make changes in response to public comments.”

That sounds like the Department might be ready to tweak the rules to make this issue go away.

But details in the rules matter, and tens of thousands of students (or more) will have their financial lives altered depending on the outcome of this random regulation.

Impact of professional student definition regulations on PSLF

One big issue to consider is PSLF, the 10-year loan forgiveness program for public servants.

Private loans are not eligible for PSLF, and if the loan limits end up being $20,500 per year for NPs, PAs, PTs, etc., that essentially means the PSLF math will not work for these professions in the future. It would be the same thing as eliminating PSLF for these health professions, although higher-earning professionals like MDs and DOs would retain access because the initiative to eliminate residency for PSLF credit was rejected in the final version of the OBBB Act.

Other changes to look out for in the final OBBB Act regulations

There’s always a chance that unexpected changes make their way into the final version of the rules, and one big question mark I have is the fate of PSLF regulations implemented by the Biden administration around 2022–2023.

These rules impact things like California-based for-profit physician groups qualifying for PSLF, weighted average credit for consolidations under PSLF, and more.

There are also SAVE plan regulations that are under injunction by the courts that have rules like weighted average credit for consolidations for IBR forgiveness credit, and we are living in a world of uncertainty as to the status of these regulations long-term.

Hopefully, borrowers will receive answers to these and other questions as the final new student loan regulations come out early in 2026.