Hearing Matters Podcast: Hearing Aids, Hearing Loss and Tinnitus

Making Sense of the Student Loan Changes and Professional Degree Definition

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Policy just moved the goalposts on graduate borrowing. We invited Jill Desjean, Director of Policy Analysis at NASFAA, to break down the new federal definition of “professional degree,” why it leans on a legacy program list, and what that means for loan limits, affordability, and access to care.

We walk through the exact criteria the Department of Education is using, how Congress pointed the rulemaking toward classifications like medicine and dentistry, and why allied health fields with licensure and clinical preparation can still be left out. From there, we connect the dots: lower federal loan caps could push more students toward private loans, weaken access to income-driven repayment, and complicate eligibility for Public Service Loan Forgiveness. 

Jill brings a clear, practical lens to advocacy—what makes a persuasive public comment, how to work with professional associations, and why stories from clinics, schools, and hospitals matter as much as data. We also surface concrete risks like mid-program financing gaps and discuss ways policymakers could align financing with workforce needs, from updating eligible program lists to safeguarding completion for students in shortage fields. 

About NASFAA 

The National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators (NASFAA) is the only national, nonprofit association with a primary focus on information dissemination, professional development, and legislative and regulatory analysis related to federal student aid programs authorized under Title IV of the Higher Education Act of 1965, as amended. Their membership consists of more than 29,000 financial aid professionals at nearly 3,000 colleges, universities, and career schools across the country. NASFAA member institutions serve nine out of every 10 undergraduates in the United States.

Positions and Advocacy Efforts

As a nonpartisan organization, NASFAA works closely with lawmakers on both sides of the political aisle. Their advocacy efforts are guided by 10 core principles that reflect our belief that the purpose of student financial aid is to ensure everyone has equal access to postsecondary education. Most often, NASFAA advocates in two separate arenas: in the context of reauthorization of the Higher Education Act and in the budget and appropriations process. Learn more about our policy positions and our advocacy efforts.

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Blaise M. Delfino, M.S. - HIS:

You're tuned in to the Hearing Matters Podcast, the show that discusses hearing technology, best practices, and a global epidemic. Hearing loss. Before we kick this episode off, a special thank you to our partners. Cycle. Built for the entire hearing care practice. Caption call by Sorensen. Life is calling. Care credit. Here today to help more people here tomorrow. Fader Plugs, the world's first custom adjustable earplug. Welcome back to another episode of the Hearing Matters Podcast. I'm founder and host, Blaise Delfino, and as a friendly reminder, this podcast is separate from my work at Starkey. I'm your host, Blaise Delfino, and joining me today is Jill DeJon. If you are a speech language pathologist or an audiologist, and you have spent any time on social media or in the professional Facebook groups over the last few weeks, you have probably seen a ton of chatter about the recent loan updates, especially the new definition of what qualifies as a professional degree. And today, I'm excited to announce we're going to bring clarity to that conversation. Joining me today is Jill DeJean, Director of Policy Analysis for the National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators. To begin, I just want to acknowledge her extensive background in financial aid administration, including two decades at institutions like Tufts University School of Medicine, MIT, Brandeis University, and the New School, and now as the director of policy analysis for NASFAA, where she provides policy guidance and regulatory interpretation for financial aid professionals nationwide, which is again why we wanted to have her on the show today. Jill, your recent article, You Have Questions, We Have Answers, Making Sense of Student Loan Changes from OBBA's Rise Committee. It really does provide much needed clarity around evolving federal student loan rules. Given the changes underway, particularly around the new definition of professional degree, I have a lot of professionals that have been texting me, calling me, asking about this. What are we doing? So I just want to thank you for being here today. And I really do appreciate your willingness to walk us through the nuances.

Jill Desjean:

Yeah, I'm so happy to be here. Thank you so much. I don't get a lot of opportunities, as you can imagine, to speak to audiologists or speech language pathologists. So it's great to be able to sort of spread what I do out to the broader world. So thank you so much for having me.

Blaise M. Delfino, M.S. - HIS:

We're so grateful for your time. We really are. And we definitely want to let our listeners know this is a conversation not about politics, but about policy. So, Jill, under the new regulatory definition, as described by the U.S. Department of Education and the Reimagining and Improving Student Education Committee, RISE negotiations, what are the precise criteria that a degree program must meet to qualify as a professional degree?

Jill Desjean:

Sure. So buckle up. I'm going to read this to you because it is precise to your point. So a professional degree is 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. That's the first thing. Is generally at the doctoral level and requires at least six academic years of post-secondary education coursework, generally requires professional licensure to begin practice, and includes a four-digit program SIP code or classification of instructional programs code. I'm sure we'll talk about that later, as assigned by the institution or determined by the Secretary of Education in the same intermediate group as a set of fields that have already been defined as professional degrees by the Department of Education many, many years ago. And so those include pharmacy, the PharmD, dentistry, veterinary medicine, chiropractic, law, medicine, optometry, osteopathic medicine, podiatry, theology, and clinical psychology. It's a lot.

Blaise M. Delfino, M.S. - HIS:

It is. And Jill, am I correct in saying that perhaps there are some unintended consequences as it relates to the semantics of this current policy as it relates to professional licensure?

Jill Desjean:

Yeah, yeah. You know, it this definition is, it's a, it's, it's a, it's got a very long history. Sort of, you know, a long, long time ago, the Department of Education created a definition for purposes completely unrelated to what the definition is being used for right now. An arm of the Department of Education called the National Center for Education Statistics was using this just to classify programs for reporting purposes, for statistical purposes. They never envisioned this as being a way to distinguish who can borrow how much money. Congress, then, when they wrote the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, decided for the first time ever to distinguish different types of graduate programs and to say these programs, students should be able to borrow X dollars, these very specific programs, students should be able to borrow more. They pointed to this existing regulatory definition that was not created for these purposes and said, here's something to use as a guide. So, you know, the Department of Education did have their hands tied a bit because Congress was explicit in pointing to that definition. So they had to, when they were deciding what's a professional program, they had to say what's kind of like what's already in there. They couldn't just start with a fresh list because Congress pointed to that definition. So they had to find other programs. If they were going to add other programs, they had to find things that shared all those same common characteristics as the programs in that definition, if that makes sense.

Blaise M. Delfino, M.S. - HIS:

I was just about to say that makes total sense. And we'll get into it a little bit later in this interview, but there will be a comment period where uh my colleagues, SLPs and AUDs, will be able to contact their elected officials. Jill, given your experience and your role as director of policy analysis, why do you suspect that feels like audiology, speech language, pathology, physical therapy were omitted? So we have this definition, but could could our elected officials that were putting this language together, even the uh Department of Education, could we have reached out to certain advisors to talk about the unintended consequences? And what does that process look like?

Jill Desjean:

Yeah, yeah. So the the process, you know, advocacy is um, there's a lot of ways to engage in advocacy. You mentioned this opportunity for public comment. And that is a, you know, the great thing about all of this, this rulemaking process is that it is transparent, it is open, it is public. You know, Congress passes a law. They require agencies, in this case, the Department of Education, to draft implementing regulations. So to sort of fine-tune, you know, Congress cannot be expected to be experts on every little thing, but we've got all these executive agencies that are experts. And so the Department of Education knows education. They say, here's what we want you to do. Go ahead and write implementing regulations to, you know, here's the what, you do the how, basically. And that's what the Department of Education did through this rulemaking committee, which are public, you know, they're they're um they're live streamed, their people can attend in person. I was there, you know, um, they are transparent, they bring in stakeholders, so they're bringing in people from different constituency groups that may be impacted. Um, interestingly, you know, there was someone at the negotiating table that represented psychology programs, and psychology is included in that group. Financial aid administrators, who were very impacted by a lot of these changes, because we have to work with all of them, you know, with the the students who are enrolled in these programs, were not included at the table. So, you know, the decisions about who's there, you know, are not always on point. But when, you know, the committee votes, they have to all agree to basically, can we live with this or not? But after that step, it's not just like this is done. Then the Department of Education has to go out to everyone, to all Americans and say, what do you think? So they will open this public comment period. We're hoping January, we really are, you know, we're hoping to see this. Um, all this needs to be operationalized by July 1. So we really want to see regular, you know, this finalized quickly so schools can actually start doing what they need to do. But this public comment process is your opportunity to say, this doesn't make any sense. Hey, help us out here. Um, another great way to advocate is at the level of Congress. They passed this law, but you know, Congress makes laws, Congress changes laws. So, you know, you can still go, you know, there are many opportunities to say, we think you were off the mark here. Go to your elected officials and say, this is how this impacts me, this change to the law. We don't know if you meant to do this. Did you really mean for the department to just stick with those 11 programs that they have? Or did you mean for them to kind of use that as a framework and expand on that? And did you think audiology should have been in there? And, you know, Congress could go back and be a little more prescriptive. They could change the law and say, hey, department, you know, we meant there for you to, you know, use those programs that were already defined and to throw some more in there, but you stuck to the ones that were already defined. So um, yeah, so lots of different places where you can go to advocate for the field that you're in that um, you know, anything that's of interest to you.

Blaise M. Delfino, M.S. - HIS:

And Jill, I'm I'm so excited about the advocacy opportunity because when this was first released, of course, usually emotions as humans that can run high and you get upset. And really taking that pragmatic approach of, okay, this was just released on social media. Let us actually review the language. What does the language say? So, first and foremost, your article helped my understanding tremendously, so thank you. Um, but also when you dive deeper into the language, the the overarching theme here is that student loan debt. Okay, and and we're not going to go into how that affects the economics of the situation by any means, but I went to school for speech language pathology. I initially went to a private school and then ended up graduating from East Strasbourg University of Pennsylvania. I graduated with a little bit over $100,000 in student loan debt, but those were private loans. So, of course, interest rate was a little bit higher. So I'm speaking from experience to not only my colleagues, but also those wanting to enter the field of speech language pathology and audiology. And before we hit record today, I was sharing with you some statistics. You know, there's uh over 50 million Americans that present with hearing loss on an audiogram, another 26 million Americans that present with normal hearing yet struggle to understand speech in noisy situations. But there's only 20,000 about hearing care professionals to serve those in our country who present with hearing loss. So the unintended consequences of this uh specific policy is that there might be students who would say, well, if I can't get a cap of 200,000 for my professional degree because audiology and speech language pathology, speech language pathology, you can get a master's, but you can also get a doctorate. And then the AUD degree is a doctoral level degree and both prepare students for clinical practice and requires licensure. So I'm excited as it relates to the advocacy aspect of it because we have the opportunity to really rally the troops in SLP, AUD, also PT, OT, nursing to comment and share. We are a professional degree and we hold licensure and let's work together. I'm curious to know what are the projected effects, if any, on enrollment in Allied health doctoral or master programs? You've been doing this for quite some time. So do you believe that there could be an effect if speech language pathology, audiology, nursing, OTPT are not under that professional degree and there's a $100,000 cap on that loan?

Jill Desjean:

Yeah, you you there's there's so much in what you just said, just to start to frame this well, is and you did, um, you know, this is about loan limits, right? This isn't about whether you're a professional, right? You know, because I have seen, and understandably, a lot of people are insulted to hear that their degree is not considered a professional degree. It is not, and no one intended. Congress didn't intend that Apartment of Ed did not intend to say you're not professionals. What they did intend, Congress very much wanted to limit borrowing because they feel like graduate student borrowing is out of control and they feel like it is the fault of the institutions. They say these schools are charging too much money for these programs. We want to cap how much students can borrow because their thought is that schools will lower their costs. Whether that is what will happen remains to be seen. So that would be great, right? If you didn't need to borrow $100,000 for a speech language pathology degree, all the better. Go ahead and institute those caps. I don't need the money. As things stand right now, though, we know that there are people, I'm talking to one right now, who has borrowed more than $100,000 for these programs. There are individual people who will need to borrow a lot to cover the full cost of tuition, the full living expenses that are associated with the couple of years that you're enrolled in these programs, who have borrowed already as undergraduates as well, who may struggle with that amount of debt. Where I worry is, you know, to your point, you said you've borrowed private loans, right? Where there's this federal loan gap, students will turn to private loans. I think that is, you know, I don't have a crystal ball. I can't really predict how people will enroll. I think for sure you could expect some people will say, I can't do this with this level of debt. I don't want to borrow a private loan. But I think many people will say, this is my dream. This is what I want to do. I've always wanted to help people with hearing problems. And I will, I'll do what I need to do to get there. I'll borrow a private loan. Private loans, as you mentioned, interest rates, you know, they're they're extremely variable. If you've got great credit, if you've got a co-signer, you can probably get a great deal and maybe even better than a federal loan. If you're not in that position, you're probably going to get something a lot worse than a federal loan. But to get to your earlier point about how it impacts the people you serve, the communities that you're serving, the people with hearing loss, that's where I have probably the most concerns. Because when people have just federal debt, they can choose to go into lower paying fields, community health centers, things like that, because they can benefit from a program called public service loan forgiveness. So if you work for the federal government, you know, local, state, federal government, or if you work for a nonprofit in a hospital setting or something like that, if you've got a bunch of student loan debt that's federal, if you work for 10 years, you can qualify to have that debt forgiven after 10 years. And so it really incentivizes people who want to go and do good work, public service work, to not be disincentivized by the amount of student loan debt. When you cut off the amount that students can borrow into the federal programs and put them into private loan borrowing, it makes PSLF less attractive. And it could lead to, you know, maybe not a lack overall in the number of people who are serving people with hearing loss, speech language pathology, but it could lead to losses in certain areas, you know, lower income areas where the pay isn't so good, community health centers, not for profits. And, you know, that that's where the really good work is happening. And those are the people who kind of need the help the most. So I do really about, you know, really those downstream effects in terms of these new federal loan limits as they trickle down to public service loan forgiveness and make public service less attractive.

Blaise M. Delfino, M.S. - HIS:

And Jill, this is all very near and dear to my heart. My father is an audiologist, my mother is a hearing instrument specialist, my sister is a speech language pathologist. So I am genetically predisposed to this field. And I'm so passionate about this because I've seen firsthand not only the impact that we've made helping patients hear better, but also when I was in graduate school during my externship, the incredible work that my colleagues are able to do, not only working with the pediatric population, but even the geriatric population, you know, teaching someone how to swallow again after they've had a hemiglossectomy. This is very important work. And I just want to thank you for joining our mission to raise awareness because this is a policy-geared conversation about unintended consequences. Jill, from a workforce development perspective, given the long-standing shortages in certain healthcare professions, uh, does NASFAA foresee any unintended consequences for the supply of practitioners if financing becomes more difficult? Not only in the SLP and audiology field, but even in nursing. I mean, I I have so much respect for nurses, especially being a first-time father, having been in the NICU for a week. It is challenging, rigorous work. And um, yeah, I'm just I'm just curious in terms of the shortage potentially.

Jill Desjean:

Yeah, you know, I think it's too certain to tell. And, you know, like I said before, you know, the the goal of this was for schools to make their programs cheaper. Whether schools can do that, we don't know. Um, if that was the impact, that would be wonderful, right? Like we would, you know, my my organization is never wanting more people to borrow more loans, right? But we want people to have access to education. And unfortunately, you know, uh education policy, generally speaking, has been leaning more heavily toward loans to finance post-secondary education. So um it is what it is, but we're we're rarely saying, you know, we'd love students to borrow more money. But unfortunately, loans are the path, generally speaking, to especially to graduate study. Um but you know, so that said, it's it's hard to say. I think individual people may be thinking hard about whether they can afford to make these choices. Um, I think, you know, another just to throw another wrench in things in terms of like if you need to go to the private market, um, you know, I mentioned sort of the worst terms in some cases. There's also the potential that you just don't qualify. I didn't really say that out loud, so I want to, you know, some people, even with a cosigner, just don't have enough credit history or have a poor credit history such that they don't qualify for these loans or they don't have someone who can co-sign for them. That would keep you out of starting a program. But even more frightening to me is what if that kept you from continuing through and completing a program? What if you've got one year down and you qualified for a private loan and then in your second year, you're not eligible for it? Now you've got the debt of an audiologist, but you're not a practicing audiologist because you don't have the credential to be able to get there. How are you gonna pay that debt off? So that's definitely something that that keeps us up at night. And that was a nice thing of the federal loan support for graduate programs that we knew that people could not just enroll in those programs, but actually successfully complete them and afford to pay their debt back. And it's a good point. Graduate students do pay their loans back. They are very successful repayers.

Blaise M. Delfino, M.S. - HIS:

Jill, I want to thank you so much for joining us on the Hearing Matters podcast. My final question: given that the final regulatory text is still forthcoming, of course, per year article, are there any stakeholder or really institutional mechanisms, public comments, advocacy still open to influence how professional degrees are defined? And what really can we do to raise awareness? I know we talked a little bit about reaching out to our Members of Congress, but how often should we do that? What does that look like? I know that the American Speech Language Hearing Association has done incredible work with raising awareness regarding this policy. So I just welcome your thoughts. You've been doing this for quite some time. So leaning into your mentorship here.

Jill Desjean:

Yeah. So yeah, I was going to mention your professional association, Asha. You know, just like we're advocating for financial aid administrators, they're advocating for all of you, you know, different people who are listening who aren't necessarily represented by Asha, but some other professional association. Get involved, talk to them, ask them what they're doing, ask them how you can help their advocacy efforts. We always, when we're advocating up on the hill with our members, we always stress to our members, like Congress isn't super interested in what Jill Desjean has to say about, you know, the numbers show and blah, blah, blah. And we're concerned. They need that information. They make decisions based on data, but the stories really compel them. The stories really convince them. When you go and you say, this is what I do, and this is why I need to have access to higher loan limits to be able to do this. You know, talking about, I want to, I want to give back to my community and work in public service, but I'm realizing now that if I'm borrowing from private loans, I'm not going to qualify for public service loan forgiveness. And that's a deal breaker for me. Or, you know, something I didn't even cover before was that federal loans have these great protections where you can pay them back based on what you owe what you earn and not on what you owe. It's called income-driven repayment. And private loans don't have that. And so, you know, talking about a $1,200 a month loan payment, well, under the federal loan rules, you actually can pay back much less, even if you've borrowed a lot, because it can be based on what you earn. And so, you know, just kind of stressing that, you know, your impacts, what you all do for people, what you do for communities, you know, when you're talking to a legislator, it's like, you know, if you can come to them and say, I know in your district that you have a shortage of speech language pathologists, or you've got this hospital system that needs people who are doing this good work. Those are the things that really color the data and the statistics and really sort of compel them to say, oh, like this is this matters, you know, it's much the same way when you talk about how you were impacted when your child was in the NICU, right? Once you've seen what that does, my kids actually had early interventions. So we've had experience with speech language pathologists. When you reach out to me, I was like, ah, speech language pathologists, good people, you know, because I've got a personal, you know, stake there. And so when you're talking to lawmakers and their their staffs, you know, making it personal and telling them the stories really make them pay more attention to the data and the statistics. So I think both are really important.

Blaise M. Delfino, M.S. - HIS:

Jill, thank you so much for joining me on the Hearing Matters podcast today. I I am excited and I I believe and truly know that this episode is going to help a lot of my colleagues. And just thank you so much for the work that you do.

Jill Desjean:

Thanks for having me. Thanks for the work you do as well.

Blaise M. Delfino, M.S. - HIS:

Thank you. Joining me today was Jill DeJon, Director of Policy Analysis for the National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators. Jill, thank you again for joining us. And until next time, hear life's story.

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Blaise M. Delfino, M.S. - HIS

Host
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Jill Desjean

Guest