New Barrier to Women Achieving Graduate Degrees

Everywhere we look, we see obstacles that seem calculated to prevent women from pursuing their dreams and achieving success. 

To single out just one, the U.S. Department of Education is seeking to reclassify graduate degrees. Some programs currently identified as “professional” would be deemed regular graduate programs, and thus subject to a lower ceiling on federal loans. In other words, students would have a harder time borrowing money to obtain advanced degrees for certain professions.

And, guess what. Nearly all of those professions involve jobs mostly held by women. 

We are talking about graduate nursing degrees. And graduate credentials for jobs such as physician assistants, physical therapists, audiologists, accountants and social workers. These are professions for which graduate degrees are either required for licensure or to advance in one’s field.

Women make up 89 percent of the registered nursing workforce, according to federal statistics. They account for 90 percent of audiologists; 65 percent of physical therapists and 85 percent of social workers.

Of the career paths up for reclassification, only architecture is a predominately male occupation. And that is changing; more than four in 10 of newly licensed architects are women.

The Department of Education says the reclassification isn’t meant to imply that professions like architecture and nursing aren’t “professional.” But it’s hard to escape the optics of stripping the “professional” label from career paths that require years of dedication and sacrifice. 

And there is real hardship that will come from capping borrowing availability for students in those fields. Trump’s education department says the change will force schools and universities to lower tuition rates. We have our doubts.

Granted, this proposed change is but one blip on a screen of developments ranging from worrisome to infuriating. We are highlighting it because it so directly affects women.

Here are some things we can do:

• Stay informed. The proposed reclassification is an offshoot of the gargantuan budget bill that Donald Trump signed into law in July. Much of the attention was properly focused on the bill’s harm to Medicaid and food assistance. The draconian changes in student loan policy are only now coming to light. 

• Take action. The reclassification is not a done deal. The education department is expected to publish the new language formally in the Federal Register next month. The Official Notice of Proposed Rulemaking, as it is known, will receive a docket ID number. We can use that number to send informed feedback to www.regulations.gov.
  
  Contact your Senators and Representatives now to let them know you object to limiting the futures of women. For contact information go to https://www.congress.gov/members/find-your-member

• Support our cause. If you have received this email, you know that the aim of the Women in Politics Foundation is to encourage and enable more women to successfully run for offices at all levels. 

We want to be represented by public officials who themselves are nurses, social workers and accountants. We want to see women in office who understand the challenges of paying for a graduate degree in architecture or physical therapy. We want leaders who will clear the way for women and girls to thrive, not throw roadblocks into their career paths.

To learn more about our work, go to https://wip-foundation.com.