As this headline from Newsweek magazine reports, a few weeks ago, the U.S. Department of Education issued probably the most out of touch, offensive new rule in the history of the Department, excluding nursing from its definition of professional occupations, part of its new graduate student loan program, which was created by the One Big Ugly Bill.

For the 4.7 million actively registered nurses and the 250,000 students enrolled in bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral nursing programs across the United States, this decree that they are not professionals is both a disgraceful insult that shocks the conscience and an order which will condemn America’s nurses into second class status for federal graduate student loan assistance.

This legal demotion is happening at a time when our country is experiencing a nursing shortage. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that we have 195,000 unfilled nursing positions in this country. The Department of Health and Human Services goes even higher. It says it’s 280,000. McKinsey and Company, a respected [consulting firm], predicts that by the end of this decade, the shortage will grow to 400,000.

But members of the House don’t really need to spend much time reading these reports to know that that shortage is real. Just go to any hospital, nursing home, or health clinic in your district, and you’ll hear the same thing, that they are short staffed in ERs, exam rooms, operating rooms, and on the floors. Short staffing is bad for patients and it’s bad for nurse nursing burnout.

Despite this blindingly obvious reality, the Education Department’s designation is putting a hard cap of $100,000 with no indexing on graduate student loans for nurses – all part of the One Big Beautiful Bill, which my Republican colleagues passed in June – a health care monstrosity which cut $1 trillion from Medicaid and cut off premium subsidies for 22 million Americans for their health care exchange plans, and now will suffocate the growth of our nation’s caring professions.

If you doubt my words, then maybe you’ll listen to the President of the American Nurses Association, the largest nursing professional organization in America. Jennifer Mensik Kennedy, the President states, “Nurses make up the largest segment of the health care workforce and are the backbone of our nation’s health system. At a time when health care in our country faces an historic nurse shortage and rising demands, limiting nurses’ access to funding for graduate school threatens the very foundation of patient care.”

Well said. But [the American Nurses Association] is doing more. They have organized a petition drive because this rule goes into effect next July. They, again, as of the middle of last week, had 180,000 signatures, and that will grow. It definitely will grow in the coming days.

And every member in this House, and I will be one of them, should write to the Department of Education saying that this rule makes no sense in terms of the health care system today, and also is an insult to the people who go through extensive training, testing, and certification before they are, again, allowed to practice their profession, the caring profession.

And while we’re at it, we should also help other professions which were excluded by the Department of Education – physician assistants, physical therapists, audiologists, speech language pathologist, architects, accountants, advanced degree educators, social workers, dental hygienists, and occupational therapists. This proposal by the Department of Education is madness, and Congress should actually do more than just support the regulatory process in terms of reversing these rules.

We should also go back and revisit the One Big Beautiful Bill and recognize what, again, our health care sector is telling us that we are risking the financial solvency of institutions all across America. And again, we are damaging our future in terms of getting young, motivated people to join the health care professions.

This commentary was adapted from a speech delivered on the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives on Dec. 1. U.S. Rep. Joe Courtney represents the Second Congressional District of Connecticut. He serves as the Ranking Member of the House Armed Services Subcommittee on Seapower and Projection Forces and is a senior member of the House Education and the Workforce Committee.